


This Could Be Our Night

by psyraah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9141019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/pseuds/psyraah
Summary: Their first meeting went like this: Ed in bright red leather and his detective’s badge heavy in his pocket, Roy carrying grief and terror, and wielding harsh words because of it. But even when that was all over and apologies were made, Roy expected never to see the man again.Roy didn’t expect to make him laugh, feel his own heart awaken, to love him, and to almost lose him.Oh, and to woo him with spaghetti bolognaise. Roy couldn’t say that he saw that one coming either.[Cop!Ed and Politician!Roy]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Epsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epsy/gifts).



> Done for the RoyEd Gift Exchange 2016. I'm so sorry this is late, and I'm also really sorry this isn't all completed. I'm trying to write as fast as I can! Will try to update weekly if I can. 
> 
> Also, I laughed really hard when I saw who I was assigned to. I hope you enjoy bb. Let me also take the opportunity to thank you for being in my 2016 and that you've been a wonderful friend.
> 
> This is some kind of modern Amestris where alchemy is still a thing. I wanted them to keep their alchemy, okay?
> 
> Rating may go up, and warnings will change at a later stage. 
> 
> Title taken kind of from U2's Song For Someone. 
> 
>  
> 
> _You were slow to heal, but this could be the night._

 

The waiting was by far the worst.

And that was saying something, because the situation was, as intellectuals would say, well and truly fucked up.

Two minutes. Two minutes in which three adults— _three of them_ , for fuck’s sake—had just glanced away, laughed at a joke, and someone had stolen off with Elicia Hughes.

But whatever Roy felt, whatever dull, aching, panicky pain was nestled deep within him, he couldn’t fathom what Maes and Gracia must be feeling.

“We’ll find her,” Roy said quietly. With conviction, because he couldn’t face himself if it weren’t true. His hand rested on Maes’s knee, and had been there for the entire agonising wait that they had endured as they made their report at the police station. Now there was only _more_ waiting, a polite ‘a detective will be here soon’ to tide them over. All the while, Maes hadn’t stopped shaking; though to be completely honest, Roy wasn’t sure where Maes’s tremors ended and his own began. Gracia was glued to Maes’s side, the two of them clinging to each other with dead horror in their eyes, and Roy was…lost. Helpless.

The clopping of approaching heels had Roy lifting his head to see a policeman walking towards him. It actually took Roy a moment to register which of the many people scurrying past was the one they were after, and he blinked once he realised that a young man with a fierce glare was approaching.

A young man who was far _too_ young. He couldn’t have been a hair past mid-twenties at most, and Roy’s blood boiled at the horrible mixture of stress, fatigue, and grinding pressure of each passing minute. Youth combined with power bred arrogance. Roy knew that, had been the same deadly combination once upon a time, before a few choice lessons had knocked all his flimsy, self-constructed pedestals from beneath his feet. And knowing it, everything about the man tugged at another one of Roy’s frayed nerves—the cocky tilt of his hips, the stern set of his brows (who did he think he _was_?), and that stupid swagger. Long, blond hair was gathered in a low, messy ponytail, and two silver hoops dotted the top of one of his ears. He was wearing a red leather jacket and black _gloves_ of all things, even in this heat, probably due to some inexplicable need to look cool.

(Two days later, Roy would instead remember the determination that had lit those golden eyes—not arrogance—and the hastily bundled spill of golden hair, as though the owner had scant had the time to even tie it up.)

“Mr and Mrs Hughes?” the policeman asked, and the three of them rose to their feet. The man before them slowed, and Roy fought hard to keep the bubbling anger in check. They’d assigned some punk ass kid, as though Elicia didn’t matter.

“I’m Detective Elric,” the man continued, coming to a stop.

“Maes Hughes.” The hand that Maes might ordinarily have extended was instead clutched tightly in Gracia’s.

“Gracia Hughes.”

“Roy Mustang,” Roy said softly, when Elric’s golden gaze fell to him. “I was with them when…” _When we lost her_ , Roy wanted to say, but couldn’t.

After a pause, Elric simply nodded. “Have a seat.” Elric waved for them to sit down, as he collapsed in a heap on a chair opposite them. “I’ll be looking after your Elicia, right?”

“Yes,” Maes said, voice steady, though his hands shook. Despite Elric’s words, Maes still stood, as though he hadn’t heard a thing beyond his daughter’s name. It took Roy’s hand, firm on Maes’s shoulder, before he sat down once more. “She’s just turned three, she was wearing a pink dress and had her hair in pigtails. Light brown hair, it’s only at her shoulders, she—”

Elric leaned forward, and flipped a page in his notepad. “I’m going to ask you to slow down a little, Mr Hughes,” he said. One part of Roy admired him for the firm tone. Another part bristled at the interruption. “Officer Brosh—he was the one you first spoke to?—he gave me a quick run-down already. I’m just gonna have to ask a few extra questions, just to get some things clear. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course,” Maes said, voice hoarse. “Anything.”

“From what I’ve got here,” Elric said, flicking through his papers, “you were on the retail end of Main Road, and Elicia was with you. At approximately 1:35pm, you were standing in front of Armstrong’s Toy Kingdom, and then she disappeared. You looked for her for roughly an hour, and filed a report with our department, which is marked 3:03pm.”

“Yes, we were out shopping,” Gracia said. “We were at the toy shop just—just in front of the entrance. Where the children’s costumes are displayed.” Her knuckles clenched white against the cloth of her trousers. “We’d taken our eyes off her for just a second, and then…then someone took her.”

Notepad abandoned, Elric leaned forward. “Did you see who?”

Maes and Gracia both shook their heads, but then glanced expectantly at Roy, who forced his voice to work. “I—I’m not sure.” Roy swallowed, and forced his voice to steady. “I’m not sure.” And he _hated_ that he couldn’t be. Ex-military, now politician, observation and attention were his most important tools. And he hadn’t been watching or alert when it had mattered the most. “I was the first to notice she wasn’t with us. I’d spotted a stuffed toy that I thought she might like, I looked up to see where she’d gone. And then I think—I think I saw her. Walking away, and I think perhaps she was with a woman. It was only a glimpse, though, before I lost her in the crowd.”

Then he’d pushed his way roughly through the walls of people, shouting and panic rising in his throat. But by the time he’d broken through to what he thought had been the spot he’d last seen her, Elicia wasn’t there. Another two hours of searching, increasing terror, and desperately asking all the shop attendants had revealed nothing. The blistering heat of summer meant that people kept their eyes forward and feet swift in their haste to evade the sun.

“And what did the woman look like?” Elric asked.

“I—” Disappointment rose high in Roy’s throat. Was it possible, he thought, for the emotion to choke you? “I think brown hair. Quite long, tied loosely, I think? Not incredibly tall. Possibly a pink shirt. But it really was only a glimpse, and I can’t even—I don’t even know if Elicia was with her. She might’ve just been standing where she was. I don’t know.”

Despite the vague description, Elric nodded, and jotted down a sentence. “And you stayed on Main?” Elric asked.

“I—I think so,” Maes said, glancing at Gracia.

“I can’t remember any different either,” Gracia agreed, and Roy simply inclined his head.

“Right then.” Elric’s expression had gone blank as he tapped his pen against his notepad, and he stared absently at the tiled floor. Roy cursed whichever stupid ass had decided to give them a bratty detective who ended up bored with his cases barely ten minutes into them. “Did you go down any of the alleys where the markets are? Anywhere near the grocer’s or the butcher’s?”

“We were mostly just browsing the jewellery stores, and some of the little artisan shops with toys.”

“I hadn’t had time to get her a birthday gift yet,” Roy said quietly. “I told her to pick whatever she wanted.” It had been so typical of him, hadn’t it, not to have enough time for his goddaughter? If he’d just made the time for _once_ in his life to have had his shit together, they wouldn’t have been there at all. He might’ve taken Elicia out to lunch, or to the park instead. _Anything_ but shopping on Main Road in the early afternoon because Roy Mustang had once again been too busy to worry about something as trivial as his goddaughter’s birthday.

“So you didn’t approach any of the side streets at all?” Elric asked again.

“We just said that,” Roy snapped, before he could hold back the anger.

Instead of anger, annoyance, or even a dirty glare, Elric simply regarded him with a level gaze. His golden eyes were steady as he turned to face Roy, pen still tapping against his notepad.

“I just wanted to check, Mr Mustang. It’s easy to forget things when you’re upset.”

Roy bristled; did Elric think he was some kind of psychological genius now? But Maes spoke before Roy could say anything. “I don’t remember going anywhere but Main,” Maes said. “We had lunch at home first, and we hadn’t been out for long, before…before we lost her.”

“All right,” Elric said, standing. “If you remember anything else that you’ve left out, feel free to call. Here’s my number,” he said, handing over a card to Maes. “Otherwise I’ll let you know as soon as there are any developments.”

“There’s nothing else we can do?” Maes asked, and the desperation in his voice matched that in Roy’s heart.

“Best you can do is to rest, and keep thinking of anything else you might’ve seen,” Elric said quietly. “We’ll find her for you.”

 _Will you really?_ Roy wanted to ask. Elric spoke with the quiet confidence of inexperience. So young, so _sure_ of himself and his ability to fix the world, until he realised too late that he couldn’t. That there were things that bigger than the individual, forces you couldn’t control, because you were only a puppet in a much larger world.

And Roy felt like such a puppet: strings cut, no will of his own, the fate of Elicia Hughes in the hands of some young stranger.

“We’ll…we’ll head off then,” Gracia said shakily. “Roy…?”

It took Roy a moment to realise that Maes and Gracia were both looking at him expectantly, and another moment for him to realise why.

“Is there somewhere I can get a drink?” Roy asked Elric, and his voice sounded distant. He didn’t need water, didn’t think that he could even stomach the thought of it. But he couldn’t—he couldn’t be with Maes and Gracia right now. Couldn’t stand the sickness in his stomach and heart, couldn’t bear the thought of sitting through an agonising car ride with all this weight and darkness bearing down on him.

“Kitchen’s through there, there’s a water dispenser,” Elric said, pointing. ‘You need help?”

Roy shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get myself back to the office, and I’ll see you two later,” he said, heading in the direction of Elric’s gesture before either of them could question why he was going to go back to work.

It was easy enough to find the kitchen, and Roy was glad that it was empty. His fingers tingled as they released a plastic cup from the stack that sat next to a water dispenser, and the sound of water rushing into the cup was distant and odd. When it was filled, Roy simply stared at it.

The cup shook. You can try (and goodness knows Roy did) to control everything. Only ever have five blue pens and one red on your desk at any given time, close your office door for ten minutes in the morning when you first arrive before opening it up again, stir the sugar into your coffee with three cycles clockwise and once anti-clockwise—and still.

And still, when it came down to it, when Roy needed strength the most, he couldn’t control his body. The clear of the water shuddered, the blue tint quivering inside the semi-translucent white of the flimsy plastic cup. His breath fought in his throat, heavy and thick, and with a detached kind of fascination he watched as water sloshed over the lip of the cup, too full for his unsteady hands.

He moved—arm up, fingers curling—to bring the cup to his lips, and the shock of cold water down his throat grounded him. There was time enough, later, to shake apart in the comfort and solitude of his own home. For now, he’d head back to the office. There was work to do. There was always work to do.

Crumpling up the cup to toss in the bin, he drew out his phone to message Maes.

 

**To: Maes Hughes [4:52pm]**

I’ll be around later. If there’s anything at all, let me know.

 

Not expecting a reply, he slotted his phone back into the inside pocket of his jacket, where it always sat. Slowly, deliberately, he sucked in a breath, and tried to still his twisting heart. One foot in front of the other, left, right, left, right, he walked out of the kitchen.

He meant to leave immediately. Go back to the office to work, catch up on things that had been neglected in the chaos of the day. But then he caught sight of Elric, still in the halls. Another woman had joined him, her hair dark and clipped short in contrast to Elric’s long gold, and Elric was leaning against the vending machine, frowning at the ground as the other woman spoke to him.

“…anything to do…need…”

Elric sighed, and Roy desperately hoped for that to be fatigue, not exasperation.

“It won’t… irrelevant…forget about it…” Elric’s voice was low, but Roy caught enough.

 _Forget about it_.

Enough to have his heart stuck in his throat as the woman nodded and walked away, enough for fear to once again since its greedy claws into his heart and crawl up his throat, forcibly ejecting words from his mouth.

“Elric,” Roy said, the word ringing in his ears. Too loud. Too much, but he _had_ to make sure his goddaughter would come back to them.

The detective turned his head, frowning, then relaxing when he spotted Roy.

“A word, if I may?”

Elric simply raised an eyebrow.

Roy wanted to punch the expression off his face.

“I’ve got work to do,” Elric said, unimpressed.

More like he’d bounce a tennis ball around and call it a day. Roy knew his type. Had seen it far too often (had been his type) in the military—young, cocky because they were young, and careless because they were cocky.

Elicia deserved better than that.

“Right,” Roy said, and tucked his hands carefully in his pockets. “Just about that, I just…I was just wondering if we would get a chance to speak to your superior at all.”

“My superior?”

“The one who’s in charge of this case.”

Golden eyes narrowed, and Elric tilted his head. “I’m in charge of the case.”

Roy blinked. “You.”

“Me.”

They were screwed, Roy realised distantly. They—he had this kid tasked with finding Elicia, this kid who looked bored with Roy’s very presence, who’d been studying the _floor_ as they’d spoken to him. A man who was in the prime of his life. A man who was so sure of his success that it could only lead to failure, because that firm belief in your own intelligence at that age always _did_.

Roy had to stop it. He couldn’t—he couldn’t trust some naïve detective with barely any experience to his name lose Elicia.

“Elicia is important to me. I—I would give anything to see her safely back to us. If you could—if there’s anyone else that could take over, at all. Anyone at all. If it’s…if you need money to have someone else come on, or anything.” Elric frowned, but Roy’s mind was working frantically. Get him away, off the case, get a _real_ police officer on this.

Then it occurred to Roy. Something that he _could_ do, had the ability to give, instead of standing here helpless as he watched some bored upstart lose Elicia. ( _You’re the one who lost her_.) “A position, or promotion,” he offered. “I know—I’m in Parliament, if you want—”

“Stop,” Elric said coldly. “And don’t tell me how to do my job. I’m good at it, and I’ve been good at it for years without any money except for the pathetic public service wage this city gives me.”

Roy swallowed, but ploughed on. “I only meant—”

“I know what you meant, Mr Mustang,” Elric interrupted again, and his eyes flashed. “And let me tell you what I mean: you’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not. You can go home now.”

“I need to—” Need to do _something_ , need to be forgiven, need to act and do _anything_ that would take away this horrible, horrible guilt in sitting in his chest. “I was the one that lost her,” he admitted quietly, the words almost a plea: let me atone. But Roy knew—had learnt long ago—that the world was not quite so simple in releasing your conscience. There was nothing to be done here, and Roy _hated_ it, hated the bitter feeling of helplessness that sat in his mouth.

And it wasn’t even Elric. It was Roy. It was Roy’s immense guilt over the whole situation. If only he’d gotten Elicia a present earlier. If only he’d taken the time somewhere else. _He_ had suggested the outing and the location. A million little questions of ‘what if’ and the smallest changes in circumstances were buzzing in his mind, and all pointed to one guilty party: himself.

He needed her to be all right. For Elicia, for Maes, for Gracia. And selfishly, for himself.

“Go back to your friend,” Elric said eventually. The words were gruff: not placating, not telling Roy that it wasn’t his fault (because even _Elric_ knew that it was). But it wasn’t unkind. Elric’s frown softened a little, and he sighed. “You want something to do? Get them something to drink. Be with them. Just let me work; you want me on this one. Trust me when I say we got the best team working on this.”

Oh, Roy wished that he could. But he’d been around too long and seen too much to simply believe the word of a stranger.

“Do you—do you have enough to find her?” he asked, willing his voice to be still. But no matter how hard he tried, the words sounded pathetic. An utterly useless question, but it matched the helplessness and futility that rang through him in that moment, standing there with his hands balling into loose fists as he fought the hopeless need to do something.

“I’ll do everything I can to bring her back. Like I said, we got the best people on the job.”

 _You can’t do anything here. Walk away_.

But Roy couldn’t. He stayed rooted to the spot, silent. Elric regarded him a moment longer, before sighing.

“She’s important to me too,” Elric said quietly, before walking away, long ponytail swinging from side to side as he headed down the hallway, and disappeared around a corner.

Roy had to let that be enough. And despite every instinct that had him warring against believing someone who looked like they had only just gotten their licence, let alone their detective’s badge, Roy tried to believe him.

* * *

If Ed was forced to describe his own office, he’d say it was unique. Maybe a bit weird. The walls were lined with shelves, papers, stationery, and other random bits spilling from them. There were several large packets of chips sitting in a shopping back in a corner (they’d been on sale!), and the room was pretty much empty of other décor. Ed kept his desk small to maximise pacing space, because he really couldn’t work sitting down for very long. Because of that, most of his stuff lived on the floor instead: a stack of pens, his dodgy printer, several notepads, and other assorted bits and pieces that you collected when you were stuck in the same office for over four years. What remained on the desk were the important things: a couple of pictures, including one of him, Al, Winry, and Granny, his computer, and the set of ceramic cats that Al had given to him when he’d been made detective.

(“They’re lucky,” Al had told him primly as he lined them up next to the computer. “For keeping you safe.”)

If other people described Ed’s office, they’d probably just say it was messy.

‘Unique’ was a much better word.

(Okay, messy probably was pretty accurate. But pretending that there was actually some sort of system in what was an absolute mess seemed to piss people off, so he stuck with it.)

So when, after his meeting with the Hughes, he collapsed on his spinny chair to a distinct crunch and crinkle of the destruction of some sort of wrapped snack, it wasn’t all that surprising.

Rising again, he discovered a flattened chocolate bar that had, until about a second ago, not been quite so flat. “Huh,” he said. It took a moment before he figured out how _that_ one got there, before remembering that being tired did weird things to his brain, and that the late night he had pulled yesterday (or really, this morning) had him sitting on the floor because he got sick of the chair, the chair instead being used as his desk. Didn’t really matter anyway, he decided, and he threw the bar into the bin that essentially served as his snack drawer.

 

(His brother had sighed once, when he’d spotted the stash. “Why are you using a _bin_ to store food of all things?”

“It’s easy? It’s just a container, Al.”

“No, but brother, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Another sigh.)

 

If there was one thing that Ed was super careful about though, it was his files. Yes, relevant newspaper clippings and random artefacts and several bouncy balls might lie haphazardly over his desk (and floor and shelves), but the folders that lined the one bookshelf that sat to the left of his desk were neat and organised. Ed yanked a blue folder from the third shelf up, one of almost five that sat in a row, each labelled with the same file number.

Elicia Hughes didn’t belong in that file.

This one had been existing. Five dead, two having disappeared from one of the streets off Main, the other three from seemingly random locations. And though Ed didn’t have enough to go on for those disappearances, there were too many differences with the Hughes case for him to think that they were connected. Sure, the original thought—disappearance close to Main—had been what had had the case coming to Ed in Homicide instead of Missing Persons in the first place. But there were too many things _different_ as well. Elicia was too young, for one thing. All the other victims had been in their twenties, and for the murderer to break pattern now would be weird. Not impossible, but weird. Added to the fact that Elicia had been seen with a woman, whereas none of the other victims had ever been seen with, well, _anyone_ before disappearing. And the connection with location was tenuous at best, especially seeing as the Hughes and their friend hadn’t wandered anywhere near where the first two victims had disappeared.

And then after the last body had been found, there had been a note.

 _You’re quite fun, Detective Elric. I’ll see you soon_.

That particular slip of paper was sitting in the fifth of the blue folders, along with several newspaper articles about the ‘Chopper’ murders (a really original name for serial stabbings). Ed had stared at it for hours on end, trying to pin the handwriting, the language, _anything_ , but it had yet to lead anywhere.

With Elicia, there was nothing. No note, no message. Again, not impossible, but just weird that there would be silence after that particular note.

But Elicia had come to Ed, and well, she was as good as his now. It wasn’t like he could just say ‘yep, nothing to do with me, she ain’t dead, come back to me when she is’. Ed had seen too clearly the grief that the Hughes were trying to fight back, the fear and horrible burden of guilt that lay on the shoulders of Elicia’s godfather (even if he’d been a bit of an ass about it). No matter how many years Ed did this job, he couldn’t really turn his back on people who needed him.

Plus, kids should have their parents, and the fact that Elicia had been missing hers for a few hours was already too much.

But Ed still flipped through the folder he’d selected to the map of Central City, marked with five red dots to show the location of the five disappearances. No harm in double-checking, no harm in going over things. Ed always found it best to just let his thoughts run when he got a new case anyway, and flicking through his old information was useful background as he let his mind wander before settling.

Three years old. Out with parents. Stayed on Main Road, and seen wandering off with a woman. Long, brown hair, loosely tied…that sounded familiar. Someone he’d seen recently? But there had been so many families lately (five victims had such a horribly human effect, and Ed had been to far too many funerals) that it was hard to place exactly. And it wasn’t exactly the best of descriptions, though Ed had seen the desperation in Mustang’s eyes as he tried to remember, so he hadn’t pushed. Maybe if it came to it, if Ed thought he was onto something, he’d ask again. But for now, he’d just…let it sit and simmer in his mind. Usually, familiar things seemed familiar for a reason, so he filed it away as food for thought.

Or maybe…maybe Ed was just projecting. That realisation came as his eyes wandered over to the only other photo that sat on his desk. Him, his brother, and his mother, playing in a park when Ed had been six.

Long, brown hair, strewn over one shoulder and held in place with a loosely tied hairband.

Another victim.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and Ed hadn’t even acknowledged the sound before Maria Ross walked in.

“Coffee, as promised,” she announced, placing Ed’s favourite Star Wars mug on his desk.

“Thanks,” he said, immediately moving it to the floor.

Ross just sighed. “You’re going to knock that over again, and then there’ll be stains, and cockroaches, and you will suffer.”

Ed rolled his eyes. “It’s _fine_.”

“Elric, I see two separate coffee stains in your pathetic excuse for a carpet, and they’ve been there for weeks.”

Scowling, Ed pressed his palms together, and scooted his chair over to the offending brown spots. Ed leaned down, blue light sparked, and the stain was gone.

Now it was Ross’s turn to roll her eyes. “You can’t just _alchemise_ all your problems away.”

“Watch me,” Ed said, grinning now as he wiped away the small amount of moisture that he had drawn from his carpet on a scrap piece of paper. Rolling his chair away once more, he tossed the paper into the bin. “I can even alchemise your problems away if you want.”

But Ross was shaking her head. “Actually, you can’t.”

Ed frowned. “What?”

“The ink sample you drew out of the note that was left? Matches the Armstrong Everyday Use Ballpoint Pen, in black. As in, the pen that everyone and their dog uses. The type that they have a million of sitting in post offices for people to write addresses with. That pen.”

“Yes, Ross, I get the point.”

“Our killer didn’t use some fancy fountain pen,” she continued, and sighed. “That one’s a dead end. But they did find something that might interest you.”

Ed grunted, and waved at Ross to continue as he spun around in his chair, grabbing a bouncy ball. He started tossing it against the wall, the rhythmic thumping grounding his thoughts. All this thinking needed movement.

“The lab team think that they found what looks like blood, on the note. It’s more of a tiny speck than anything, but when they chucked it under a microscope they said it’s probably blood.”

Ed grunted. “Victim’s?”

“They reckon it’s not human.”

At that, Ed’s eyebrows winged up, and he stopped spinning. The chair slowly rotated so he was facing his window, watching the darkening of the city skyline. “Why’s that?”

“Something about how it spread, hell if I know. That’s why I thought you’d want to check it out.”

“Yeah, I will. Have they done anythin’ with it yet?”

“No, but I think—”

“Good, tell ‘em not to touch it.”

“Elric, we’ve got lab techs for a reason.”

“Yeah, so they can do all the simple stuff, and not fuck up the important shit. If it’s that tiny, I don’t want anyone touching it but me.” Ed paused. “Or Al. But Al’s got other shit to do. So just me.”

Ross sighed. “Tringham’s going to be on my back again.”

“Tringham’s _always_ on our backs.”

“No, only mine. _You_ just sit up here and avoid him.”

“Well, last time I went down to tell him he was doin’ a shit job, he didn’t like it,” Ed huffed. “Easier if you’re the one telling him.”

“Do you have time to go around playing scientist, though?”

Ed shrugged. “I’ll make time.”

“Need help with the Hughes deal?”

Ed hesitated, but shook his head. “Nah. Like I said before, it’s irrelevant to the Chopper case. I think.” Or so he hoped. If he was wrong…

If he was wrong, then that was another little girl’s life that he’d lost. He’d done it once, and he didn’t think that he could stomach it a second time.

And it was that thought which had him saying, “I’m turnin’ somethin’ over in my head. If that doesn’t pan out, I’ll give you a shout.”

“Right, yell if you need me.” With a final smile, Ed’s trusty partner left him to his own devices. Devices that didn’t involve him going anywhere near Russell Tringham, thankfully.

With a sigh, Ed tumbled out of his chair to sit cross-legged on the floor, yanking the other couple of Chopper folders down with him, and stacking Elicia’s on top of them. Sipping his coffee—piping hot despite the summer heat—he leaned his back against his desk, his leather jacket creaking as he settled.

One kid, two apparently loving parents and godfather, though Ed would keep a sliver of suspicion for the three of them. Their distress had looked genuine, but Ed didn’t get to where he was by believing everyone who he talked to. Still, for now, they could get the benefit of the doubt, and Ed mulled over their story.

They’d taken her shopping. Without realising, Ed closed his eyes, trying to picture the street. It would’ve been hot, the heat moving people along sluggishly. Sunglasses would’ve covered up everyone’s vision, and the discomfort of the warm air would’ve kept minds focussed on the next destination and getting indoors, not on any children underfoot. Armstrong’s Toy Kingdom was a huge place, spanning over almost a whole block on the street. There was also a couple of clothing stores around there, Ed knew, and he pictured how it would’ve been that afternoon, with the sun beating down and people milling about. Around the corner, the butcher’s, and a supermarket next to that. From there, it started turning residential. Ed himself had been down that end of the street because of the Chopper murders, two of the victims having last been seen down that street. He’d had to interview a few of the residents there, though they had turned out rather useless. Young families mostly, some with small children, a few house pets—

A woman with long-brown hair, loosely braided.

Ed opened his eyes.

No way. That would—he’d interviewed someone just like that. Surely it would be a massive coincidence if this was all it took?

Still, Ed supposed there was no harm in trying. Half his job seemed to be dumb luck anyway, so he picked up the phone, and flicked the folder open to where he’d recorded details of the interviewees. It rang three times before someone picked up.

“Hi, Ms Thomas? This is Detective Elric.”

* * *

The clock outside had just obnoxiously bonged its way past seven o’clock when Roy finally decided to close his last documents, and shut down his computer. Heaving a deep sigh, he pushed his chair back from the desk, and gazed out the window to see the dark of night settling over the city.

The rest of his afternoon after his return from the police station had been a numb fog, mindlessly churning through menial tasks in a desperate bid to distract himself. Hawkeye—his best friend, boss-in-everything-but-title, and long-time confidant—had left about half an hour ago, with various threats to be constantly checking up on him throughout the night. He would’ve laughed if she didn’t also look like she was dead on her feet at Elicia’s disappearance. Would’ve laughed if the hollowed look in her eyes didn’t make Roy feel as though the floor had dropped out from beneath his feet.

But he was out of luck, now. All unimportant documents had been signed, emails replied to, and meetings scheduled. Anything else that was left needed his brain working at some actual level of functionality that he just didn’t possess at this moment. All that was left was to pack up (which he could do), eat (which he couldn’t), and head over to Maes’s. Maybe he’d get dinner for Maes and Gracia as well. They were unlikely to have made anything, not with the state of things, and perhaps—

Roy’s phone didn’t even ring for half a second before he picked up.

“Maes.”

“They found her,” Maes said, and Roy’s heart stopped. How could—it had barely been three hours. “They—it wasn’t even—it wasn’t even a kidnapping. But they know—we’re—meet me downstairs.”

The words were barely out of Maes’s mouth before Roy had slammed his office door behind him, unlocked, and bolted to the lift well.

“Where was she?” he asked, disbelievingly.

“A—the woman you saw. The woman—” But Maes let out a choked sob, and Roy knew he wasn’t getting any further with that. He waited impatiently for the lift, while his heart hammered inside his chest, so hard that Roy could feel the rhythm thrumming through his bones. Stumbling inside the elevator, he said nothing. Simply sucked in a breath, and listened to Maes sob over the line.

When the lift doors opened, Roy raced into the lobby, and exited into the dying warmth of the summer day. Night had fallen, but the darkness hadn’t entirely dispelled the sticky heat.

Roy spotted Maes first, and Gracia with him. But then Roy also saw another figure in a familiar red jacket, blond hair being yanked around in the breeze, and a parked car glowing blue and red with emergency lights.

“Maes—”

“She’s okay,” Gracia said, while Maes sobbed into one hand, his wife’s arm slung around his shoulders. Elric stood respectfully to one side, and Roy glanced between him, and Maes.

Roy gripped Maes’s arm, at a loss for words. “I’m—I’m glad,” he said, though that didn’t cover it. That didn’t cover how his knees were weak, how his heart wanted to burst into relieved tears as Maes was doing, and how the selfish thought was running through his brain that he didn’t need to have _another_ death on his hands.

“Get in,” Elric said. “I’ll get us there quicker.” Without another word, he strode over to the driver’s seat and slammed into the car. Maes and Gracia followed quickly, shuffling into the back, which left Roy to take the front passenger seat. The engine rumbled to life before Roy had even clicked in his seatbelt, and Elric pulled away, lights blaring but siren silent.

An odd quietness descended, during which there was only the grumble of the engine, the creak of Elric’s jacket as he moved, and the quiet sniffles of Maes in the back seat.

“What happened?” Roy asked quietly, breaching the silence.

Elric’s eyes flickered to the rear-view for a moment before he answered. “More of a weird coincidence than anything. Long story short, she’s with a woman who runs an orphanage. The children were out at the shops as part of a trip, and Elicia basically just latched onto one of the kids without any of the adults noticing. At least, not until everyone was back on the bus and they were doing a headcount.” Elric sighed, but there was a hint of a smile lifting up the corner of his mouth. “They trekked all over town, so they had no idea where they’d picked Elicia up. So the woman—her name’s Rose—just filed a police report, and because our systems suck, it didn’t match immediately. Some idiot spelled ‘Elicia’ with an A instead of an E. They didn’t want her hanging around a police station, so they just let Rose take her home for the night.”

And…that was it?

All this worry and terror, and that was all?

No serial killers or child kidnappers. Nothing more insidious than the insatiable curiosity of a three-year-old, and a bungle in a government-funded system. Roy’s heart was still a tangled mess, and it all felt so _silly_ now, but he didn’t know where to put the threads or how he should start undoing the knots. His fingers itched with the need to do something, for somewhere to channel all the fear, rage, and panic from the past few hours.

But all he managed was a quiet, “oh.” And the rest of the trip is silent.

Soon enough, they were back on Main Road, and in a detached way, Roy recalled how they had frantically pounded down these very streets in horrible panic mere hours ago. But then Elric turned into a street that Roy didn’t recognise, and another two minutes had them pulling up outside a house with a weathered green mailbox, and trimmed bushes lining the front yard. The car was eerily silent once Elric switched off the ignition, and the opening of his car door was almost invasive in the quiet.

“C’mon, we’re here.” The words had barely left his mouth before both Maes and Gracia were tumbling out of the car, and Roy—for a brief moment—was left alone in the vehicle. He watched the three figures trek up the garden path, observing the way two of the silhouettes stumbled and rushed in the fading light, and the easy gait of the third led the way. There was the ever-present sound of cicadas in the summer, but what Roy would remember of that night was the light which spilled out of the front door of the house, and Gracia Hughes dropping to her knees.

In his turn, Roy also exited the car. Maes was sobbing harder, and had now joined Gracia, kneeling on the stones of the garden path. Elric stood a away from the family, his head turned towards the figure of another woman who stood in the doorway, but every so often flicking back to check on the Hughes. For a moment, the panic was still caught in Roy’s throat because he couldn’t _see_ Elicia, could only see the shaking form of her parents. His footsteps remained soft as he made his way up the path, but it was enough for Elicia Hughes to notice him, and when her little head popped up to peer over the shoulder of her father, Roy felt the knot around his heart finally come undone.

“Uncle Roy!” she screeched, and her pigtails—bless her—swayed wildly as she bounced on the spot.

And Roy couldn’t stand being apart from her for another moment. “Hi, princess,” he whispered, running forward, bending down, and then she was _there_ , folded warm and safe in his arms. So young, so small, yet such a big part of their family. It had been mere _hours_ , but the long wait had been agonising, terrifying, horrible in the possibilities of loss and grief.

 _She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s okay_. The thought ran round and round Roy’s mind, desperately trying to convince him that things were back in place, back the way they were meant to be. It was a moment before Roy realised that it was Maes also murmuring the words in his ear, as though to convince _himself_ that his daughter was safe and sound.

“Would you like to come inside?” a quiet voice asked, and Roy looked up to see a woman. Apparently the woman he had spotted earlier that afternoon, although he couldn’t place the face that he had purportedly seen in that crucial split-second. The hair _was_ familiar, brown as he had described it, but that was as far as any resemblance to the brief flash of a person he had in his memory went.

“We’re okay,” Maes said softly, voice muffled against Elicia’s coat. “We should leave soon anyway. Thank you for—for looking after her.”

Giving Elicia one last squeeze, Roy stood. “Yes, we appreciate it. I’m Roy, her godfather. Thank you.”

“More than welcome,” she said warmly. “I’m glad I was able to help.”

“We’re incredibly grateful you found her,” Gracia said, standing as well. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she was smiling shakily. “So incredibly grateful. Thank you.”

“You should thank Detective Elric,” Rose said, and her eyes twinkled as she looked down at Elric. “He’s the one who made the connection.”

Elric simply shrugged. “S’my job,” he said simply.

But Roy…Roy was beginning to see that it was more than that for Elric.

They eventually said their goodbyes, and Elric and Roy both decided to give the Hughes another moment before they headed off. So Roy found himself standing at the door to Elric’s vehicle, watching as three of the most important people in his life simply held each other and breathed.

“How’d you find her?” he asked Elric eventually, to break the silence.

Elric let out a breath, and his bangs fluttered when he did so. “Dumb luck. We’ve had a couple of disappearances around this area recently, but no one’s ever seen anything. But I’ve done the rounds here a few times now, and your description kinda sounded like Rose, once I figured out where exactly I’d seen her. Thought I might as well try.” Elric clicked his tongue. “Wish I’d remembered sooner. Had this dumbass niggling feeling for at least an hour trying to place her. Shot in the dark, really.”

“Dumb luck,” Roy murmured, and Elric grunted in agreement. But luck very rarely was dumb, Roy had found. In fact, it was usually the product of intelligence, preparation, and planning. Of course, being in the right place at the right time was always helpful. But being ready and willing to be at that place, and being ready and willing to act when the moment came, that was down to hard work, and determination.

Whatever Elric had done, it hadn’t simply been a stroke of luck.

Quiet fell over the two of them, and Roy glanced down at Elric. He felt…stupid. Ashamed. Both which were not emotions that were usual in the course of his day. He had seen far too much of himself in Elric, and didn’t think at all that someone might have learnt humility and restraint at a far younger age than himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About what I said back at the station.” The words barely made it out into the night air, and for a moment, Roy thought that Elric hadn’t heard, or didn’t understand what he meant. He was met with nothing but silence, and the seconds dragged on as the two of them watched Gracia hold Elicia tight, with Maes’s arms wrapped around the both of them.

But then Elric shifted, and shrugged. “S’all right. Just don’t be an ass, next time.”

Roy bristled, but then deflated just as quickly.

“I guess I deserve that.”

“You did,” Elric agreed, but his expression had softened. “Guess it was stressful, though. Ask my partner how many times I’ve chewed her head off when we’re under the pump.”

“Regardless, it was rude. I do apologise, and I hope I can make it up to you somehow.”

But Elric just waved it off. “Public servant. Don’t worry about it.”

“I appreciate the work all the same,” Roy said softly. “We all do.”

“Eh, I didn’t really do anything anyway. Rose had already made a police report. Would’ve been another hour or two, tops, before you found her.”

Roy was inclined to agree, for a moment. After all, there had been no malicious serial killer or child kidnapper responsible for any of this. Just an overly curious three-year-old, and some weird turn of events. Rose wouldn’t have kept Elicia from returning to her family.

But it had been Elric who had returned her all the sooner. Elric who had made the connection off Roy’s shoddy description, Elric who had called up some suburban citizen that he didn’t know, at a time when Roy suspected he should’ve gone home. And here he was now, making sure everything ran smoothly, smiling as he watched Elicia reunited with her parents.

Another hour or two apart from her parents may have been trivial, in the grand scheme of things. But Elric seemed to have fought for it regardless.

“We were lucky to have you. Which makes it all the more deplorable that I used such harsh words.”

“Geeze, the long words are more offensive than the harsh ones. I’m just a cop, Mr Mustang. Keep your apologies simple.”

“My most sincere apologies, Detective.”

Elric groaned. “I _said_ simple.”

And finally, finally, Roy could laugh. A little chuckle, but something nonetheless. “All right, all right. But in all seriousness, if there is anything you need at all.”

“Food. Can never have enough of it.”

“I make a nice spaghetti bolognaise,” Roy offered.

And of all things, _that_ seemed to get Elric’s attention. Suddenly, the man was looking up at him with glowing eyes and the beginnings of a smile, where his eyes had previously been resolutely trained on the Hughes. “Seriously?”

“Apparently. My staff seem to think so, at least.” Jean was always impressed with it and had ‘accidentally’ stolen it several times from their office fridge. But the real test was Riza Hawkeye, and when even she requested it on the occasional night that she visited Roy’s, Roy knew that he was onto something.

“Shit. Shoot,” Elric amended, and Roy wanted to smile when he made a face of disgust. “Sorry. Guess I’ll have to try that.”

“I’ll send it to your office. What’s the address?”

“Central City Precinct, Level 4, Homicide.” Elric paused, then added, “actually, just address it to me. If you leave food for the entire Homicide Department, it’ll be gone in two seconds.”

“Noted,” Roy said, the two of them shared a small smile, before turning their eyes back to where Elicia was babbling to her parents about her day. It was a safe thing to do, once the conversation ran dry.

But then a thought occurred to Roy. “Wait, if you’re homicide, how’d you end up with Elicia?”

Elric hesitated before replying. “We thought there might be a connection with somethin’ I’m working on. But that didn’t pan out.”

Roy didn’t miss the way that his expression had once again gone carefully blank, and for the first time, he noticed the slight slump of Elric’s shoulders and the shadows under his eyes. And he’d still dragged himself out here for them. “I’m sorry,” Roy said softly, and Elric looked up at him, surprised.

“Hey, I’m glad we found Elicia. It’s no big deal.”

“You didn’t have to come out all this way.”

But Elric simply shrugged. “Better if I follow these things through. That way no one stuffs it up with spelling errors,” he said, scowling.

All the same, Elric hadn’t needed to. Could’ve simply assigned an officer, or even just passed on an address to Maes and Gracia, and Roy once again almost got whiplash from the realisation that Elric was going above and beyond.

And with the whiplash came the overwhelming urge to kick himself for his earlier behaviour.

But before he could express the thought, Maes and Gracia were approaching, each of them holding one of Elicia’s hands. She swung and cackled between them, so blissfully happy, a bright contrast to everything in the past few hours. The woman—Rose—trailed along behind, watching the three of them fondly.

“Hey, baby, this is Detective Elric,” Maes was saying, and his voice was still thick with tears. “He helped Mum and Dad find you.”

Elicia dropped her parents’ hands to wave both of her own enthusiastically at Elric. “Hi Deta—Det—”

“Hi Elicia, just call me Ed,” Elric said, and the grin that he pulled out seemed to banish some of the shadows.

“Hi Ed!”

“It’s real nice to meet you,” he said, bending down, and the smile was still on his face. Not just the little smirks or quirks of his mouth that Roy had spotted once or twice this evening, but actual happiness. Roy couldn’t help but think that it suited him better than the shadows that had plagued him only moments before.

“We’re lucky we got him,” came a murmur in his ear, and Roy turned to see Maes standing beside him, watching Elric chatter and laugh with Elicia. Elicia was bouncing up and down excitedly, Elric gesturing animatedly, and something tugged at Roy’s heart.

“We were,” Roy agreed softly.

“All right, let’s get you home,” Elric said, and his hand was clasped firmly in Elicia’s as he looked back at the adults. “Told her she’d get to ride in a police car, but only if she’s a good girl. Has she been good?”

There was soft silence, filled only with the sounds of traffic and cicadas. Maes was looking suspiciously misty-eyed again, bending down to press a kiss to Elicia’s forehead as she waited with bated breath.

“She has,” he said, love in his voice.

Elicia’s squeals filled the evening as she leapt into Elric’s arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK PEOPLE WE'RE MOVING. KIND OF. I DID NOT REALISE WHEN I INITIALLY WROTE THE FIRST CHAPTER THAT I WAS SETTING UP A SEMI-SLOW BURN. OOPS. MY BAD. REGRETS ARE HAD. ENJOY.
> 
> ALSO PLEASE WITNESS [COP!ED](http://gettigram.tumblr.com/post/155505478832/psyraah-writing-coped-and-i-know-we-were-all) IN ALL HIS GLORY. GETTI MAKES DREAMS COME TRUE.
> 
> Also I just realised I pasted the above screaming in the chapter summary. Please ignore that if you saw it, and read it here instead.

One week later, the clock in Roy’s office had just struck ten in the morning, the Tuesday morning fruit delivery had yet to arrive, and Roy’s life was a disaster.

“Say that again,” he said quietly, and resisted the urge to plant his face into the desk. It was one of the few things he’d spent any large amount of money on in this office: deep brown, gorgeous pine, and most importantly, wide enough to accommodate his computer, several notepads, and his growing collection of novelty paperclips. He wasn’t about to ruin it by crying on it.

In front of him, Riza Hawkeye snapped shut her notebook, and leaned back in her chair. “It’s not going to change anything, Roy.”

“Humour me. Please.” Maybe he’d just…heard wrong. For once, Roy might be prepared to let some comment on his advancing years slide, if it meant that he was hard of hearing and therefore grossly mistaken. Or perhaps Riza had mixed up her words, or vowels, or languages.

But Riza just sighed—and it didn’t sound like a foreign one—and repeated what she’d said just twenty seconds prior. “Hakuro intends to vote against the Xingese bill.”

Unfortunately, still as disastrous as when she had first intoned the words. “But _why_?” Roy groaned. “Does he live to frustrate me? Is he wanting to destroy me through cardiac arrest? Because it might just work.”

“Maybe he finally realised that your support for building water fountains in Central City wasn’t quite as necessary as his for establishing a stable trading route with Xing,” Riza said calmly.

“Water fountains are important.” Roy wouldn’t have supported their construction if he had thought that they would be detrimental to the city. In fact, he would probably still vote for the, annoyingly enough, even now that he knew Hakuro definitely did not care about what Roy thought of him. “I’ve been nice to him recently. I even complimented his horrendous shoes last week! And they were _horrendous_.”

Riza sighed. “Roy, this is unhelpful.”

Roy echoed her sigh, and leaned back in his chair. He stared aimlessly at the ceiling, before glancing back at his chief assistant. “I know.” Calming his initial rage, Roy rested his head in his hands, and now that the dramatics were over, the weight in his stomach returned. He sighed. “I thought I had him,” he said quietly. “I thought we were safe. It’s being tabled _tomorrow_ , and he pulls this now?”

“We’re lucky, actually,” Riza mused.

Roy stared. “Lucky? One of the most influential senators in Parliament just backed out on one of my major policies, and we’re lucky?”

“Well, you never let me get to the good part, which is _how_ I found out.”

Roy looked up to see Riza staring at her fingernails, eyebrows raised in what he knew to be an expression of victory. “You seem happy, despite the imminent demise of three years work. Please, do share.”

“I saw Hakuro in the break room, while I was making my tea for myself and Heymans, and fetching your muffin—”

“It’s a cupcake.”

Riza stopped looking at her fingernails to glare at Roy, and Roy raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry, sorry, I won’t interrupt.” Though it was technically a cupcake. Reminded of what Riza had delivered before bad news, he slid the cupcake over from where she had deposited it, and started unwrapping it. Maybe chocolate could lift his mood.

“Hakuro came in, and his first words were ‘I’ll take a black tea, please. Two sugars,’” she continued.

Roy raised an eyebrow, before popping the cupcake in his mouth. “You shoot him?” he asked around the flour and sugar.

The variety of emotions that Riza managed to express in very minimal movement of her facial muscles was impressive. Riza somehow managed to shoot him a look of disgust, as well as look disappointed, as he wiped chocolate from his lip. “He did say ‘please.’ I wasn’t going to maim him after such politeness.”

Roy resisted the urge to snort, but waved for her to continue.

“I made the tea. I used salt.”

Roy did snort at that point. “He didn’t notice?”

“No, because he was too busy chatting to his intern. Giving him life lessons, I believe. About wasting time on, I believe his words were, ‘pointless vanity projects.’ And then he spent a further five minutes furtively checking over his shoulder as he payed out the Xingese agreement, all while emphasising the importance of keeping this ‘between the two of us’.”

Roy stared. “And you weren’t the object of any of this furtive checking?”

“He doesn’t notice me.” Calmly, Riza sipped her tea.

“You’re _constantly_ with me, how does he not notice you?”

“His ego is quite an amazing thing,” she said. “He only notices you.”

“What a privilege,” Roy muttered.

“Two weeks ago he saw Jean in the copy room, assumed he was a secretary, and dumped a pile of documents on him to copy. How he fails to remember a man who stands over six foot tall is beyond me.”

“Did Jean do it?”

“He accidentally shredded the papers.” Although her expression didn’t change at _all_ , Roy could tell that she was pleased.

But, there was still the matter at hand. “Okay, so he doesn’t know that we know. Which would work in our favour if we actually had a plan to make up the shortfall in votes.” Then Roy could have the satisfaction of watching Hakuro’s blood run cold like the snake he was when he found out that the bill had passed despite his best efforts to sabotage it.

“Better start thinking.”

Roy sighed, and his _own_ blood ran cold at the next thought. “We could…try Armstrong again.”

“And by ‘we’, I think you mean ‘you’,” Riza said, standing up and pushing in her chair. “Enjoy.”

“Wait, Riza—”

“I can’t, unfortunately. I have a fair amount of work to do.”

“Why can’t you call?”

“Because,” she said, peering down at him from where she had paused in his doorway, “I was under the impression that this was _your_ office.”

“But you actually have her respect.”

Unfortunately for Roy, his attempt was futile. The way that the corner of Riza’s mouth quirked up in a smile meant she was enjoying his suffering far too much. “Maybe you should attempt to earn it.”

The door shut with a very final _click_.

Doomed. Roy was doomed. Three years of work, or close to it, and it was all falling apart because of some old man with backwards ideologies and a personal vendetta against Roy. That, and a terrifying woman from whom Roy needed to ask a favour.

But that was all right. Everything was all right. All Roy had to do was just…press some buttons on his phone, and form some words with his mouth. That was all that was required.

(If only life were that easy.)

Bracing himself, Roy clicked through his contacts, and pulled up the relevant number.

The phone rang once. Twice.

And halfway through the third ring, it was cut off with a “make it quick, Mustang.”

“Olivier.” He fought back the urge to ask her about her current break from attending Parliament, because such niceties would not be appreciated. “I need a favour.”

“Can’t do it.”

Roy swallowed. “It would mean a lot to me if—”

“You think I give a shit about your feelings?”

All right, definitely no pleasantries. “I just found out Hakuro won’t be supporting the Xingese trade route. I’m presenting on the bill and we’re voting tomorrow.” Roy sighed. “If he’s not voting for it, that means at least Johnson and Diaz are gone as well, and I don’t know who else he might be able to persuade away from our side. I need your help to make sure he doesn’t.”

There was a long silence, and Roy could hear his heart beating in his ears. This was three years worth of work that could come crumbling down around him, three years worth of negotiations with Xingese parties, of his team pulling late nights and having early mornings, and too many cups of coffee. He was hanging his career in foreign affairs on it all. He’d played his cards as carefully as he had been able, but it had still been stupid to rely on Hakuro.

Perhaps he had worn his heart too readily on his sleeve, and had let the entire world see how much it _mattered_ to him. He hated this game as much as he loved it: the constant balance between caring too little and too much, between taking risks and diving headlong to drop your head on to a chopping block. But this was important to him, and he’d be damned if he’d let them take that away from him.

Though he had damned himself, in relying on Hakuro. Olivier had been available, but knowing her disgust at playing politics (despite, oddly enough, her entire career being immersed in it), Roy had wanted to stay in her good graces as much as possible. And for good reason too—he could almost feel the heat of her fury through the silence over the phone at having been called back to work early.

But silence was good. If Olivier wasn’t talking, it also meant that she wasn’t insulting him, which could only be a good sign.

Then the silence started to get a bit _too_ long, and Roy was becoming suspicious.

“Olivier?” he said cautiously.

Nothing.

Frowning, Roy hung up, and tried again.

Voicemail.

Hanging up a _second_ time, and starting to become irritated as well as increasingly confused, he was about to try her secretary when someone knocked on the door, and Riza entered.

“I just got this message from Senator Armstrong, sir.”

Roy narrowed his eyes. The use of ‘sir’ never meant anything good, and was the equivalent of a smirk from Riza.

“About?”

Riza simply handed her phone over, and Roy read the message displayed on the screen.

 

**From: Olivier Armstrong [10:23am]**

Tell Mustang I’ll be back tomorrow. Talk to Miles—he’ll know who will be more easily persuaded. Also, tell Mustang I left him hanging because it was amusing, and he’s making me go back into that shithole of useless snakes early. And this favour is not for him—I don’t want your team to suffer unnecessarily because of his incompetence.

I hope your day remains pleasant.

 

Roy simply stared at the screen. Looked up at Riza, then back to the screen.

“I think it went well, sir,” Riza said, when Roy had been quiet for almost a minute.

“Stop calling me sir.”

“Of course, Senator Mustang.”

“ _Riza_.” He was not whining. He was not whining because his friend was calling him names.

“At least we can rest easy now,” Riza continued, as though he hadn’t said anything. “Well done.”

Something curled in Roy’s gut, and he sighed. “Not like I did anything. Besides, it was more my doing in the first place; I should’ve convinced her to come weeks ago, instead of hinging my bets on Hakuro.”

“We had our reasons, Roy. And now it’s fixed. Don’t dwell.”

Easier said than done. But at least—or, rather, Riza—had caught this early. The thought of what might’ve happened had even one detail of the narrative changed shook Roy to the core.

“You’re right, it’s done,” he said. “And tomorrow, we get the pleasure of watching Hakuro watch _us_.” Groaning, he rose to his feet. “I’ll need to prepare for tomorrow given the change of plans. But right now, I need coffee.”

Riza raised an eyebrow, and glanced pointedly at the wooden desk clock (which was hand-carved, and no less by Riza Hawkeye herself). “No afternoon coffee today, then?”

Patting down his pockets to make sure he had his wallet and phone, Roy shook his head. “Looks like we’re going to be rather busy in the afternoon. Anyway, I need one after the morning I just had.” Which would hopefully never be repeated again.

“Coffee run,” he announced to the rest of the office, once he stepped outside. “Anyone need anything?”

He was met with silence. Then, “a bit early for you, ain’t it, chief?” from Jean. The man chewed a matchstick as he glanced at the clock that hung on the wall.

Shaking his head, Roy just strode out the door. “I just had a near-death experience. I need coffee.”

“Near-death experience?” Kain asked. Roy could hardly see him past the stack of assorted technological equipment piled on his desk. But from the tone of his voice and from the top, bespectacled half of his face that Roy could see, he was incredulous. Well, he couldn’t be doubted by his team like that. Roy drew himself to his full height.

“My greatest pride and joy was almost sabotaged, and I had to put my life and dignity on the line to save it. I just endured the most terrifying experience of my _life_ , and I think that after all that, I deserve one, measly, little coffee. At _least_. Possibly more. I could go for an entire suite of—”

“If you don’t hurry up, you’ll have another near-death experience very soon,” Riza interrupted.

Roy fled.

* * *

Maria couldn’t figure out whether or not she regretted coming with Ed down to the lab. On one hand, it was easier for both of them to know any relevant information first-hand—not only did it save time, but it also saved anything being lost in translation. Not that the second thing was really a problem when Ed was going to be the one doing the lab work, but still, it was easier for them both to be there, particularly when Ed had promised that it would only take “like, a fuckling of a moment” (whatever that meant).

On the other hand, things could possibly take significantly longer if Ed was unable to get through his arch nemesis.

“Tringham, for fuck’s sake, just let me do my work!”

Currently guarding the door to the forensic laboratories where he reigned supreme (or at least, had more authority than Ed), Russell Tringham barred the way like a dragon guarding his most precious treasure. “No, Elric, you let me do mine,” Russell growled back. He was using his height advantage to tower over Ed and stare down at him, not that Edward was backing down at all. “I’m sick of you coming in here like you own the place. I’m perfectly capable of doing whatever task is set to me, and I don’t appreciate my schedule being constantly interrupted.”

“I’m not interrupting,” Ed snarled back, equally fierce. “I’m giving you _less_ work. You don’t even have to worry about it, just let me in for five fuckin’ minutes.”

“Into _my_ lab. _My_ work place, Elric, not yours.”

Ed sighed, and glanced off the side. Then he backed down—only a little, but enough for the heat to somewhat calm down. “Look, I know you’re…good at your job,” Ed said, and Maria was impressed. It used to be that she’d have to resort to bribes and flattery to get them past the door. Maybe Ed was finally learning. “But the array you’re gonna need is mine. I made it, I know it best.” Ed huffed out another breath, before shoving his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want anyone fuckin’ it up.”

Maybe Maria would still need those bribes.

Tringham’s eyebrows lowered like a drawbridge of a castle—slowly, but ominously.

“Hey, Russell?” Maria said, before the bulging vein in his forehead could explode.

He turned to face her so fast that his lab coat billowed. “What?”

“My mum sent me a bunch of her rock cakes again,” she said. Her mother had actually done no such thing, but it could be arranged. Maria could see Ed rolling his eyes behind Russell’s back, but Maria ignored him. “I could get you some.”

Russell’s frown deepened. “I won’t be persuaded by bribes,” he said, the last word venomous.

But Maria shook her head. “Not a bribe,” she said. “A…thank you. If you let us use the lab.”

Ed had taken to making stupid faces behind Russell’s back now, and if Maria were standing any closer, she would’ve punched him in the arm. For someone with the arrest rates that he had, Ed was surprisingly petty. Unfortunately, distance made it difficult to do anything more than glare, and glaring would attract Russell’s attention to the grotesque facial contortions taking place behind his back, so Maria had to settle for ignoring Ed.

Russell glared at Maria for a moment longer, before he too relaxed, and turned to open the door. “Fine.”

“Awesome, thanks Tringham!” Ed grabbed the handle and yanked—but the door remained firmly shut.

Russel sighed, and pulled out his staff card. “Need to swipe in, Elric.”

Ed scowled. “Then hurry the fuck up about it.”

Very pointedly, Russell jostled Ed out of the way—all while Maria wanted to bury her face in her hands—and pressed his card up against the reader. There was a quiet _beep_ , and then Ed yanked the door open again, this time with slightly more success. He sped off while Russell ensured that the door had closed properly after Maria stepped inside.

“I was going to let him in, anyway,” Russell grumbled to the doorknob. “Ass.”

“I know, I know,” Maria said. “They are really a thank you present. I know we can be hard to deal with.”

Russell sighed. “It’s fine. He’s good, I just wish he weren’t so…abrasive about it. I still don’t know why he doesn’t work down here. He loves it.”

Maria—who did know—merely hummed as they followed the little blonde ponytail as it bobbed its way down past the various shelves and desks. If energy and action were to cease being mere concepts, and instead were persuaded to take a human form, she had no doubt that they would do so in the form of Ed Elric. Someone like him holed up in a lab all day? She couldn’t see it.

“All your Chopper stuff is on the left,” Russell called. When Ed turned down one corridor, Russell sighed. “The _other_ left. Why is he like this?” he asked Maria.

“He got in at four this morning. I think he’s gotten to the point where sleep deprivation is making him hyperactive rather than fatigued.”

“And he’s afraid _I’ll_ screw something up? When he can’t even figure out which way left is?”

Maria shrugged. “He’ll be all right.” Though she would threaten bodily harm if he pulled the same thing again tomorrow.

As the two of them turned left (the correct one), Maria could hear the sounds of one very loud Edward Elric, and the slightly calmer tones of his brother coming through the open lab door.

“Russell was _nice_ to me today, Al, holy shit!”

“Maria helped you again, didn’t she?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That thing where she’s polite to everyone to make up for the fact that you aren’t, you know how—”

“ _I don’t know what you’re talking about._ ”

“Ed, stop picking fights,” Maria said, entering the lab. “Hey, Al.”

“Hi Maria!” Ed’s younger brother said, and the smile he sent Maria’s way was almost blinding. “How are you?”

“Pretty good, actually,” she replied.

“Good to hear. I hope my brother isn’t causing too much trouble.” Al wheeled himself over, the two of them ignoring the indignant squawking of the elder Elric. “How’s Cupcake?”

Maria smiled. Regardless of the time of day, other events, or anything else, Al would always ask about Maria’s kitten immediately after asking about Maria herself. “Still growing. She worked out how to do the stairs the other day. Here, I took a video,” she said, bringing out her phone to show the clip that she knew Al would enjoy.

“Tringham, where’s my shit?” Ed asked. “And Al, stop cooing.”

“I’m taking an interest in your partner’s life,” Al said primly.

“And my kitten.”

“And her kitten. Mostly the kitten.”

Maria tilted her phone as Ed leaned in so he could join in watching the short video of Cupcake tumbling down the stairs, before later conquering them. “It’s kinda cute,” he relented, bracing himself against the back of Al’s wheelchair so he could lean over a bit better. “Still, d’you gotta coo about it?”

“The other day you whimpered when you found a copy of _Piper on Alchemy and the Natural World: Volume V_ ,” Al informed him.

“I didn’t _whimper_.”

“Cross my heart.”

“I’ll cross your _face_.”

“Seriously, I thought you were the older brother,” Russell muttered. Shuffling around, he drew out the letter that Ed had received from the Chopper murderer, placing it on a spare workstation.

Ed scowled. “Yeah, so I’m teaching him respect.”

“Ed,” Maria said, tilting her head helpfully towards the letter. “Work?”

Ed huffed. “Fine, fine,” he said, and grabbed a lab coat from where they hung on the wall.

Maria smiled to herself, and drew up a chair to watch.

For once, Ed was silent, as he fiddled with various miniscule containers and intricate machinery. He removed his gloves—such delicate work needed Ed to be able to manoeuvre his hands with precision—and handed them to Maria wordlessly. With those removed, the white lights of the lab glinted off the metal prosthetic that took place of his right hand. “Good for lab work, keeps stuff steady,” he’d once told Maria. And it was true, that Ed’s hands moved with an easy grace as he worked his various instruments. Though Maria often thought that was simply the quiet confidence of experience more than anything else, especially when he used his flesh and blood left hand to draw a freehand circle to enclose his transmutation.

With one final glance at Ed, Russell moved back to his own workstation. Alphonse, on the other hand, had backed himself up against the wall to watch his brother work. When Maria glanced over, Al caught her eye, and inclined his head questioningly towards Ed.

_How is he?_

Maria grimaced, and shrugged. _Not fantastic. But I’m working on it_. Her partner was obsessing over the case, especially since he had received that letter; addressed to him, it was personal now, which meant the case only drove Ed all the harder. Something would have to give soon.

“Tringham, hand me the letter?” Ed requested softly, his address for once lacking insults.

Wordlessly, Russell passed over the familiar piece of paper. Nothing special, physically—just a normal sheet of white paper, with barely any words on it. But the words were the important part. The words were what had Ed running himself ragged—and Maria, too, to a lesser extent—in a frantic hope to catch the killer. Five victims, each death only causing increasing frustration. Then _this_ : a taunt, a brag, an invitation.

And all directed at Ed.

 _You’re quite fun, Detective Elric. I’ll see you soon_.

Too much for one man to handle. Too much for _this_ particular man to handle, Maria thought. The slump of Ed’s shoulders as he hunched over his array, the frantic energy, none of this was new. She had been his partner long enough to recognise when stress and pressure were getting to him, and knew that if she—or someone else—didn’t step in soon, then Ed would burn out. It was already starting. So, after this task was done, Maria was going to try her best to slow him down.

“Gotcha, you bastard!” Stepping away from the workbench, Ed held up a vial triumphantly. Walking over to Maria, he passed it so that she could take a closer look.

There was only a drop’s worth of liquid inside the vial. “Enough to test?”

“Yeah, should be.” Ed tugged on his braid. “I tried to get every last bit out of that letter. Should be workable. You okay to run it, little brother?”

“Of course,” Al said. Maria handed the vial over, and Al deposited it safely at his own desk. “When do you want it by?”

“Can you get it done by the end of today?”

Probably thinking exactly the same thing as Maria, Al simply raised an eyebrow. “Brother, it’s four in the afternoon, and I have other work. No.”

Maria thanked the heavens that Al at least could say no to his brother.

“ASAP then?” Ed asked, and Al sighed.

“I’ll work as fast as I can. Now, shoo. You’ve disrupted us enough today.”

“Thanks, Al! You’re the best!”

“And don’t you forget it,” Al said, though he smiled as he waved the two of them off.

Waving goodbye to both Al and Russell—who waved back, with a glare at the back of Ed’s head—Maria followed her partner as they headed back to their desks.

“Well, while Al’s doing that, I can bounce around some stuff for the dead bank teller deal we caught yesterday.” Ed yawned, and stretched. “Gonna go grab a coffee first. You want anything?”

At the words, Maria’s heart clenched just a little bit. “Ed, you’ve been running around since four in the morning. Take a break, and not one involving coffee.”

“I’ll be fine, c’mon.”

“No, listen to me for once, Ed. You’re running on fumes. Go home, _now_.”

“I’m behind on so much shit though,” Ed protested. “I’ve just—I’ve got a fuck ton of stuff that I need to get through. The Hughes deal last week kinda screwed up my times, I need to catch up.”

Maria sighed, and hated herself for relenting. “You don’t leave any later than six tonight,” she said, though she didn’t expect that to be obeyed.

Knowing Ed, and knowing the way he just smiled tiredly, the night would pan out as she expected. Ed turned away and waved a hand over his shoulder.

Sighing, Maria headed back to their office by herself. Unfortunately, Ed still had enough energy to be stubborn. So she’d let him be for now, until he really ran himself into the ground so much that he’d be more susceptible to simple bullying.

It wasn’t enough, she thought. As far as she knew, Ed’s only lines of defence against his overworking problem were herself and Al. But their work brought them both too close to it—they all knew how important the next minute, or an extra second could be, how that could make the difference between life and death. Not to mention they all worked odd hours when needed, so neither of them could really keep an eye on Ed constantly.

But Maria did what she could. Which hopefully included restricting his access to caffeine and an early heart attack. Smiling a little to herself, she pocketed the wallet she had snuck from Ed’s jacket, and walked away.

* * *

Okay, so Russell Tringham was generally a pain in Ed’s ass. Cocky, taller than Ed, and sporting a stupid haircut, he lived to make Ed’s life hell. Not only did he guard his lab like some kind of…guard, thingy, he’d also hang around whenever Ed was running tests or analysing shit, complain about how hard Ed made his job—as if any of it was Ed’s fault—and sometimes, if he was feeling particularly annoying, he’d personally deliver milk to Ed’s office. Just to piss him off.

Pain in the ass.

The worst bit was that Al—of all people!—took Russell’s side in pretty much everything. (“Brother, come on, the milk thing was funny.”) Or, at least, he didn’t argue for Ed as passionately as Ed argued for himself, which was pretty much betrayal of everything that tied them together as brothers.

But he was smart, or at least had the minimum level of competence that Ed expected of people he worked with. Ed just didn’t know how someone who worked in something as cool as forensic chemical analysis turned out to be so fucking _annoying_.

And _weird_. Who wore suspenders to work? Who added milk to their coffee? And had a hot water bottle stored away in his desk for cold days? Ed had _seen_ the fucker use it before, and had stared when he’d walked in on Tringham with his feet propped up against his desk and a water bottle cuddled against his stomach. (After that, Ed had borrowed it whenever his shoulder acted up. It pissed Tringham off to the extreme.)

But the weirdest thing? His little brother was a fucking angel.

“Ah, we’ve got the almond cookies you like today,” Fletcher Tringham—blond, sweeter than the cookies he sold, and tiny—was saying. “I’ll grab one of those for you!”

“No, Fletch, it’s fine—” But Fletcher was already speeding into the storeroom of the café, and Ed couldn’t stop him. “I’m fine with chocolate chip,” Ed called after him half-heartedly. The almond cookies were the shit, but it didn’t mean that Ed wouldn’t eat whatever cookie usually came free with the coffee he was buying. Rejecting free cookies was pretty fucking rude, and Ed was many things, but fucking rude was not one of them.

At least he wasn’t holding up the line by indirectly making the barista run around looking for Ed’s preferred cookie. The lunch rush was over, and Ed was one of only a few other customers—one lady rocking a pink suit, and a group of cops that Ed kind of recognised—who were hanging around the café.

Fuck, he was tired. He sipped at his coffee—black, without a single drop of milk, thank you very much—while he was waiting, hoping that it would somehow just zap his nerves back to life with the assault on his tastebuds.

And it did, Ed’s eyes widening as the taste hit his tongue. Shit, his mouth felt like it was _burning_ with how strong the coffee was. Maybe asking for two espresso shots hadn’t been a great idea.

“You change the beans or something?” he asked Fletcher, once he’d returned with Ed’s preferred cookies. “This shit burns.”

Smiling a little uncertainly, Fletcher efficiently packaged two cookies in a paper bag. “Maybe ‘cause I just made it, and it’s hot?” he suggested tentatively.

Oh.

“That explains it.” Ed just took another sip, and blanched when it scalded his tongue.

“Do you want me to add some colder water?” Fletcher asked, concerned. “That can’t be good for you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Ed was a cop; he could deal with a burnt tongue. Setting down his coffee, he shoved his hand inside his jacket packet—and found it mysteriously empty. Frowning, he tried the other pocket, and found that empty too. “Shit.” Nothing in his jeans except for an elastic band and a mint, and—the soft clinking of coins.

He drew his hand from his pocket, and there were…just enough coins to cover the drink, Ed discovered, relieved. And an extra dollar for the tip jar. “Sorry about the change,” he said, heaping the coins into Fletcher’s palm. “I must’ve left my wallet back at the precinct.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Fletcher said. “We always need change, that’s actually great.”

Ed blinked. Did _anything_ ever get this kid down?

“Well, um, glad I could help.”

Fletcher just smiled, and handed over his bagged cookies. “You should look after yourself, Ed.”

Ed scowled. “Your brother yapping again?”

“No, but I can tell.” Fletcher tilted his head. “You’ve been in here twice today, and you’ve been coming at least twice each day for about a week. I haven’t seen you this much since that one time you realised your reports were due on the 7th of March, not May.”

Ed grimaced. That was not a fond memory.

“I’m fine. Just a bit of work stuff.” Lots of work stuff. Enough work stuff for Ed to feel like his eyes were swimming in blood and murder, and to have a constant headache—that he was fervently denying—floating annoyingly behind those swimming eyes.

Fletcher hummed non-committedly. “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do.” He smiled again. “You know you’re not just a customer here.”

Despite everything, Ed found he could smile back. “Yeah, thanks Fletch.”

Taking another sip, he dropped his extra dollar in the tip jar. Instead of making its usual clink, there was a weird clunking noise. He glanced at the jar again—and did a double take. “Wait, what the fuck Fletcher? Who left a hundred bucks?” No, actually. He squinted, and looked closer.

It wasn’t just one note in there.

“ _Two_ hundred bucks?” His voice did not squeak. It _definitely_ did not squeak, but someone had left two hundred fucking bucks in the tip jar of some random café.

Behind the counter, Fletcher stopped wiping down a cup and grinned at Ed. “Some guy in a suit. First I’d seen of him. He came kinda skipping in this morning, and when he chucked that in there, I thought he’d made a mistake. But when I asked, he just grinned, and said he’d had a near death experience and lived. So…” Fletcher shrugged, but he was still smiling fondly at the tip jar as though it had just adopted a thousand puppies.

“Holy shit,” Ed said, wide-eyed. “Those people exist?”

“Apparently.”

“Shit,” Ed repeated. “Why can’t I meet someone like that?”

* * *

Right. So, apparently Edward Elric now attracted bad luck. Because, for the second day in a row, he didn’t have his wallet with him on the afternoon coffee run.

(A three-minute walk away, Maria Ross once again extracted a black wallet from her pocket, and placed it on the desk next to a nameplate reading DET. E ELRIC.)

“Got the five bucks your brother had to give me this morning for a bet, though,” he told Fletcher triumphantly. His irritation at his forgetfulness faded, and Fletcher once again handed him his much-needed caffeine.

* * *

The third consecutive day it happened, Ed was pissed.

“Seriously?” he groaned. “I just—”

Nothing in his right pocket—

“—can’t believe this shit—”

—and nothing in his left.

Ed sighed, and grimaced when he noticed that Fletcher—diligent as usual—had already poured his coffee. “Sorry, I got nothin’ today. Really sorry.”

“Oh, no, Ed it’s fine,” Fletcher said. “I see you enough anyway, you can just pay later.”

“Nah, you’d get in trouble with your boss, or somethin’. I don’t want that.”

“I’ll pay for the moment; you can pay me back later.”

That was an even _worse_ idea. Let some broke-ass uni kid cover his coffee. Yes. Very classy. “No, seriously. I’ll—I can run back and grab it.” He resisted the urge to sigh, and punch a wall. He could feel that horrible itch under his skin, and the fact that this was also going wrong just pinched his nerves that little bit more. “I must’ve left it on my desk again.”

Fletcher glanced out the window worriedly. “It’s looking a bit hot outside, you don’t want to be running around in that.”

“No, seriously, it’s fine.” Ed sighed, resigned. “I’ll be back in five.”

“If you’d like,” came a voice from behind, soft and weirdly familiar. “I can pay for you?”

Ed turned around at the voice, ready to reject the random offer of some stranger.

But this wasn’t a stranger.

He was—the guy with the Hughes, Ed remembered. Though that was about all he could remember, because for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the guy’s name. Dark hair was swept back, and he was dressed in a dark blue suit so well-fitting that he probably stepped in and out of the thing like a mould every day when he got home.

The man—shit, what was his name again?—nodded once, and smiled. “Hello again, Detective.”

And finally—maybe it was the way the guy said his title, or maybe it was his voice—Ed remembered his name.

Roy Mustang.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To: Fletcher T [3:47pm]  
> Yo. What time does Mustang usually come in?
> 
> From: Fletcher T [3:47pm]  
> Did you make a friend????
> 
> Ed rolled his eyes, cursing when he almost ran into a dumpster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS IS SLOW. I AM JUST SLOW IN GENERAL. PLEASE ENJOY.

Roy Mustang. God-father to Elicia Hughes, some kind of senator thing, and currently smiling politely at Ed.

“Oh, um…” Shit, what was he meant to call the guy? Mr Mustang? That sounded weird, he never addressed anyone with titles unless he actually _liked_ them, or needed something from them that couldn’t be bullied out (which was rare). Ed still wasn’t really sure if he liked Mustang, though the guy did just offer to pay for coffee; maybe Ed should be buttering up to him? Calling him by his last name was a bit weird. But so was first name. Had they even been introduced properly, or did Ed just pick up his name from the files? Last week was a _really_ long time ago, and Ed couldn’t remember any of that shit.

“...hey, sir.”

…really? Mustang was _not_ a high school teacher, and Ed did not have enough sleep to be dealing with weird social situations. Maybe Maria was right about the sleep deprivation. To be fair to him, it wasn’t every day that Ed ran into a person who had been vaguely connected to a case that had been vaguely connected to his department.

But, weirdly enough, Mustang just smiled more broadly. “Roy will be fine, Detective.” Well, thank fuck Mustang had solved that one for him. “I heard you needed a coffee?”

And Ed stopped wondering at the weirdness of the universe, and remembered the entire reason why he was here.

“Ah, right, nah,” he said, and winced. Okay, he really did need to sleep, he couldn’t talk properly anymore. This would only be solved by sleeping or not leaving the office to interact with anyone, and the latter was out of the question because it was pretty much the entire point of his job. “It’s fine.” Finally, something that made sense and added value to the conversation. “It’s all good.” All right, that second part had been unnecessary.

“No, please, it’s not trouble,” Mustang said. “I’ll just grab one of the shakes again.” Ed was about to interrupt, but Mustang was squinting so intently at the menu on the wall above Fletcher’s head that he couldn’t bring himself to break his concentration. “The, ah, ‘All Ground Up’, please.”

Oh, Ed had suggested that name to Fletcher when the kid had been going through the process of helping out with the menu. It was, essentially, a fuck ton of coffee. The name was appropriate, because it was the best kick when life had trampled you with a ten-tonne truck, and because, well, coffee.

Why was Fletcher looking at him funny?

There wasn’t anything going on—Mustang had his wallet out, and was already offering a bill to Fletcher, who was reaching out to take it, very, very slowly.

“Ah, Mr Mustang, it’s fine, really,” Ed said quickly. “Really, I can just go back.”

Mustang grimaced, before shoving the bill insistently into Fletcher’s waiting hand. “Roy really is fine, and it isn’t any trouble.” Then the man smiled, and Ed must have been really sleepy, because it was…kind of nice. “An expression of gratitude, for finding Elicia.”

Damn it, he couldn’t really turn it down any other way, could he? Fuck whatever unnatural force had stolen his wallet. Fuck them ten ways ‘til Sunday.

“Well, thanks,” Ed said reluctantly. Then he remembered something. “Weren’t you gonna thank me for Elicia by making pasta though?”

Got him!

“That can still be arranged,” Mustang said. He picked up Ed’s coffee, and offered it. “Unfortunately, work is a little busy at present, so it might be some time before I have sufficient leisure time to be cooking properly. So for now…” He trailed off, and gave the coffee cup a little shake. “Consider this to be interest,” Mustang said.

Shit. Ed had really backed himself into a corner here, hadn’t he?

“Fine,” he huffed, taking the cup from Mustang. Then he realised that might not be very polite, seeing as the coffee was free. “Uh, thanks.”

Although he looked like a stuffy suit, Mustang just smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Ed had just wanted to duck in and then back out—the quicker he got back to work, the better—but it felt weird to just leave now. Like, thanks for your coffee, I’m just gonna run away now. And even though Al sometimes said he had the manners of a goat, it wasn’t like Ed tried to be rude (unless some asshole deserved it).

So he sipped his drink while Fletcher whirred and screeched his way through making Mustang’s shake, Mustang flipping his wallet open and shut with one hand as they waited. Fletcher quickly ducked back to the cash register to tuck Mustang’s bill away in the till. “Fourteen dollars and eighty cents,” Fletcher muttered, the machine that was grinding out Mustang’s shake still clanking away behind him. When Fletcher announced the change as being five dollars and twenty cents, Mustang dropped a few of the coins in the tip jar.

“Sorry it’s not quite as much as the other day,” he said, a little sheepishly.

“Oh, oh, no,” Fletcher hurried to say, and Ed lifted his eyebrows. What was this? Fletcher was beaming, and Ed took another sip as he watched the scene unfold. “It was—it was already very generous of you, thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” Mustang said. “It’s a lovely place. I’m glad I found it.”

When Fletcher caught Ed frowning in confusion, he grinned even wider as he went to retrieve Mustang’s drink. “This gentleman was the one who gave us that tip the other day!”

Tip? For what? How to make better coffee? Maybe Fletcher had needed help studying, but why would Mustang help? Anyway, Fletcher had said ‘we’, so it meant that Mustang’s tip was for the shop, not—

Ed almost choked mid-drink. “Wait, the two hundred?” he spluttered, which was a mistake. “Oh, fuck.” He dribbled embarrassingly, and scowled when Fletcher handed him a tissue to mop up the droplets sliding down his leather jacket. Mustang was watching him in amusement, and Ed still couldn’t believe it. Okay, so the guy had bought his coffee, but to randomly drop two hundred in the tip jar of Boss As Beans? “That was you?”

Why the fuck did the guy look embarrassed? Ed had been expecting calm acceptance, or a bit of crowing, maybe? But Mustang looked like he wanted to hide. “Well, yes? Like I said the other day,” he said, nodding at Fletcher, who was still beaming like a lighthouse, “I had just come from a rather stressful experience. I was feeling grateful to be alive, and with most body parts intact.”

“Politicians must get a fu—lot more than other public servants,” Ed said.

“Maybe a little, but nowhere quite as much as you are perhaps imagining,” Mustang said, with an amused quirk of his mouth that said that he knew exactly what Ed had been about to say before he cut himself off. Ed decided right then and there that he hated the expression. The bastard. “I just believe in a little bit of goodwill and humanity every now and again. Someone had done me an immense favour earlier that morning, so I felt it was perhaps time for me to do a little bit of good for others.”

 _Well, fuck me_ , Ed wanted to say, but didn’t. He was tempted to, if only to test the waters and see if Roy Immaculately-pressed-suit Mustang really wouldn’t mind if Ed was a little…uncouth. But he probably wouldn’t see the guy again, so maybe best to keep things civil. “Are you using our taxpayer dollars on coffee?” Ed asked with a glare. Then he realised that maybe _that_ wasn’t civil, and that he shouldn’t make semi-insulting jokes with politicians that he barely knew. Sure, Mustang was young, but if Ed had learnt anything from having watched Police Commissioner Curtis deal with the government, it was that politicians were weird.

But, surprisingly, Mustang just huffed. Actually, the way he rolled his eyes was almost....childish. It reminded Ed weirdly of Al, when he thought his older brother was doing something particularly stupid. “No,” Mustang said, smiling wryly. “All my own. Cross my heart.”

“All right, I believe you,” Ed said, and now he let himself smile. “Good for you.” He meant it. After the crappy week that he’d had—the usual murders and violence, not to mention his still-to-be-caught serial killer—it was nice to see some good.

Mustang just coughed, and grabbed his drink when Fletcher pushed it across the counter. “More as a congratulations to myself than anything,” he said. The way he fumbled with the plastic wrapping of his straw was kind of cute. It softened his face, the serious lines of his brown shoes, and everything in general. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a hardass as Ed had first thought. Last week’s grief and panic, and now the serious suit and sensible blue tie combination, had given Ed the feeling of being dragged before the principal’s office.

But maybe Mustang wasn’t all that bad. The next few minutes of having to politely wait for him and then walk with him a block of two to wherever they were going didn’t seem so unbearable anymore.

“Well, thanks for this Fletch,” Ed said, gesturing with his cup. “Needed it.”

“No worries, Ed!” Fletcher smiled. Ed was blinded. It was as though the gates of heaven had opened up. “Though you’re going to have to cut back a little, otherwise I’ll tell Al.”

Ed glared. “Low blow. But fine,” he said, when Fletcher opened his mouth again. “I’ll try.” As if Al didn’t already keep track of Ed’s caffeine intake obsessively. Loser was always trying to look after Ed or something. Which made sense—they really only had each other.

“Yes, thank you…Fletcher?” Mustang said, and Fletcher nodded while beaming enthusiastically. “I’ll be glad to make this a regular stop.”

“We’ll be pleased to have you, sir!”

“Roy is fine,” Mustang said, with that smile again. Sipping his drink, he swung open the wooden door with a creak, and nodded at the sunshine that streamed in. “After you,” he said, gesturing with his drink to Ed.

“All right, see you Fletch.”

The two of them exited into the sunshine with the tinkle of the bell above the door saying the final goodbye from Boss As Beans, at least for today. Probably.

“Your place is just two blocks down, right?” Ed asked.

Mustang looked at him in surprise. “How did you—oh, right, last week,” he finished. “Yes, it is. And you’re close by, too.”

“Yeah, I can walk you back.”

“I’d like that,” Mustang said with a smile. “Thank you.”

The fuck did the have to be so happy for?

“Well, er, thanks for the coffee again,” Ed mumbled.

“My pleasure,” Mustang said.

The lapsed into silence, Ed sipping at his coffee, Roy slurping his shake through the—as always—inadequately narrow straw. Which was _still_ weird. Here was a guy who was in a full suit, jacket on and tie immaculate when the sun was scorching above them, looking like he stepped off a runway, and he was sucking up brown goo through a flimsy plastic straw.

Huh.

“Has work been busy lately?” Mustang asked suddenly, and Ed ducked his head to avoid catching Mustang’s eye. Small talk was not his strong suit.

“Enough,” Ed said. “We been working on a case for a while, the one we thought Elicia was caught up in. That’s still going. Then just bits and pieces. Have to be in court next week, some admin shit to catch up on. Bits of lab work.”

Mustang made a little noise of surprise mid-slurp. “You do your own lab work?”

Scuffing his foot against the concrete, Ed huffed out a breath. “Kinda? It’s—my little brother works in the labs. We both studied forensic alchemy and chemistry, and my boss is pretty relaxed about it, as long as I get all my work done.”

“You’re an alchemist?”

Stopped at a light and waiting to cross the road, Ed looked up; Mustang was looking at him in surprise, his drink forgotten as he stared.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

“Well, no,” Mustang said hastily. “I just—it’s funny, it didn’t occur to me that the police would use alchemists. But then again, why not.”

Ed shrugged. “It’s useful.”

“Yes, there isn’t any reason not to. After all, the military does,” Mustang mused. “It’s nice that you can do some good with your studies.” Mustang’s smile was soft and a little…distant. “I used to dabble a bit too.”

“Wait, really?”

Now, it was Mustang’s turn to be confused at Ed’s disbelief. “Do I not look like the model scientist to you, Detective?”

To be honest, no. “Model, yes,” Ed said, and it was the truth. “Scientist, no.” Ed blinked.

Fuck, had he really said that out loud?

Thankfully the light changed, and Ed could direct the energy from being embarrassed into walking super fast instead. Not that Mustang seemed to notice that Ed was stomping with more vigour than before.

“Why, Detective, I’m both flattered and offended,” Mustang said, chuckling. Bastard was laughing at Ed’s dumb mouth. “Why ever not?”

“Just call me Ed,” Ed said, making a face. “I only really go for Detective if I’m trying to scare someone. And c’mon, you telling me you’d go to the lab in that get-up?” Ed asked, gesturing with his cup from Mustang’s well-shined shoes to the perfect symmetry of his tie knot.

“Well, leather jackets are hardly appropriate. I imagine you’d wear a lab coat, just like I used to.”

Ed raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, fine, point taken. Did you used to do chem kinda stuff too?”

Mustang chewed on his straw a bit, before answering. “Ah, not quite. I mean, all alchemy is chemistry, I suppose,” he said, and Ed nodded, “but no, mine was a little more specialised than most. I dealt with flame alchemy.”

Was the guy kidding? Ed whistled. “Mustang, that’s not a little more specialised. _No one_ does flame alchemy.”

Mustang scrunched up his nose. “I suppose. It’s largely behind me now, anyway. Now I just sign papers and provide fellow public servants with coffee.”

“You didn’t like doin’ alchemy?”

It was familiar, the way Mustang’s expression went carefully blank. Ed had seen it too many times on Al’s face, used it often enough himself for him to know that some part of Mustang had…gone away.

And something in Ed’s heart gave a little.

“I liked it, at the start,” Mustang said eventually, and his movements were controlled as he steadily—too steadily—lifted his cup to take another sip. It was that control, so weirdly different from how he had been joking and relaxed before, that made Ed’s stomach curl in regret at the direction this conversation was taking. “I just…lost my passion for it, eventually. You know how it is, when you study something for too long.”

“Right,” Ed agreed, though he was burning (ha) to ask what it was that had made Mustang lose his passion exactly. But no, not the time. “You got any siblings?” he asked abruptly, so Mustang would lose the distant look in his eye.

Mustang blinked, and thank fuck his smile finally came back. Ed had been beginning to feel like he had kicked a puppy. “No, I spend enough time at my aunt’s work that all her employees are essentially sisters to me. Teasing, overly nosy, would die for you—that sound like siblings to you?”

Ed laughed, and thought of Al. “Sounds about right. My little brother’s the same.”

“You said he works with you?”

“Yeah, he’s the best.” Ed grinned as he almost tripped over an uneven patch of the footpath. “Pulled some blood magic for me the other day. I mean, like, he did some crazy stuff with a blood sample. Like, testing stuff. Not magic stuff.”

“He sounds wonderful, despite being a literal wizard.”

“I just said he’s _not_.” Ed tried really hard not to pout, but then decided to fuck it. If Mustang couldn’t handle Ed acting like a ten-year-old, he probably wasn’t cool enough to hang out with ever again anyway.

But, to his credit, Mustang chuckled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sure he’s wonderful, even without the magic.” Mustang slowed at the next street corner, the one with the ice-cream cart that was topped with a blue and pink umbrella. “From memory, this is where I will have to be leaving you.” The man smiled, all pleasure and warmth. Maybe he wasn’t half bad after all. “It was a nice surprise to see you again, Det—”

“Nope,” Ed interrupted.

“Ed, then,” Mustang amended.

“Knew you were a fast learner, Mustang.”

“You know, you really can call me Roy. Like your title does for you, Mr Mustang only produces some bad memories. Such as my landlady chasing me up for rent in my misspent youth.” Man, when the guy smiled like that—all soft and genuine, with that fucking twinkle in the pretty darkness of his eyes—who was Ed to say no? And after he’d kicked up such a fuss about his own name, it was only fair.

“I guess,” Ed said, shrugging. “It was…nice to see you, too.” Ed surprised himself with how true the statement actually was. “I might…see you around?”

“I hope so.” There came that fucking smile again. Had anyone told the guy that he was attractive when he wasn’t piled with stress and being a (kind of understandably) rude asshole? Because he was. And there was a little bit of Ed that wanted to be the one to tell Mustang. Roy. Roy Mustang.

Whatever the fuck he was meant to call him.

“Cool.” Keep it simple, keep it smooth. “Have a good one, then.”

“I hope you enjoy your day, too.” With a final little shake of his disposable cup, Mustang—Roy retreated. He walked…well, like a fucking businessman, with one hand stuck in his pocket and this slight swagger to his step. But then he took another sip from his cup, and looked like a kid in a suit again, the crowd swallowing him up as he headed back to work.

Which Ed should also be doing, and not spacing out as he watched slightly attractive politicians walk down the street like it was a fucking runway. He yanked out his phone to check the time—4:23, enough time to get back and make a couple of calls before clocking off—and turned the corner to get back to work.

The precinct was quiet by the time he got back, and the elevator ride up to the ninth floor wasn’t as packed as it usually was. Which was nice, for a change. Seemed like the universe was finally giving Ed a break, by making sure that he didn’t have to deal with some asshole’s gross armpit shoved in his face, which seemed to happen to him an awful lot. Which was _unfair_ , because why did armpits have to be at face height anyway?

Maria’s distress when he finally got back to his desk was also unexpected. One step into her line of sight, and she let out a groan, and threw a pen at him. “ _How_ do you keep getting coffee?” Maria cried.

Ed ducked the pen, and blinked. “What’s wrong with me getting coffee?”

Maria sighed. “Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. You’d just think that you might be able to stay off the caffeine if you didn’t have anything to _pay_ with, but nope, you just like proving me wrong and being weird.”

Wait…Ed narrowed his eyes. How did Maria know that he’d had a weird wallet curse? “Did you steal my wallet?”

“Yes.” Zero hesitation.

“Ross, what the fuck?”

“You’ve been working way too hard, and drinking an entire vat of coffee a day isn’t going to fix that,” she said, meeting Ed’s glare with her own. “I’m trying to look out for my partner here, but he seems to be incapable of letting me!”

For a moment, Ed battled between his first reaction—which was to scream at her and retaliate with his own pen-throwing—and some weird affection at the thought that she _was_ trying to look out for him. He knew that the urge to throw ten pens was just the tiredness talking, not that it dulled the urge at all.

So Ed settled on sighing. “I’m not a kid anymore, Ross. I can look after yourself.”

“Clearly you can’t,” she said, collapsing back into her chair, jaw rigid. “You’ve been running yourself ragged, and even if I didn’t care about you as a person, you’re damn _useless_ as a partner if you don’t get some sleep.”

“All right, all right,” Ed said, raising his hands in surrender. He took the final sip of his coffee, before dumping the cup in the bin. “I was gonna clock out earlier today, after some calls. Promise. I’ll be out by five thirty. Six, tops.”

Maria narrowed her eyes, before seeming to relax slightly. “Fine. And you’re not coming in any earlier than nine tomorrow.”

Ed resisted the urge to wince, thinking of all the hours lost. “Right. Promise.”

Maria grunted, satisfied. “How’d you get your coffee anyway?”

Ed smiled at the memory. “Funny that. Ran into Mustang. Roy Mustang? The guy with Elicia Hughes last week?”

There was a brief silence as Maria squinted at nothing, before her expression cleared up. “Right, the senator guy, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s some kinda politician. His office is real close to Fletch’s place, so I think he just went there for coffee. Offered to buy me one when I realised that my wallet was missing.”

“Nice of him.”

“Yeah.” Ed sighed, leaning on her desk. “You know, you don’t need to go so far next time.”

“You needed a wake up call,” Maria said stubbornly. “Was it good for you?”

“It’s _my_ wallet. You shouldn’t have done it.”

“All right. But answer my question: was it good for you?”

“Well, I still got my coffee,” Ed said with a smirk, and Maria looked like she wanted to strangle him.

“Let the record show that I tried,” she sighed, and simply shook her head. Ed fell silent, watching absently as Maria rifled through various papers. He was in an oddly good mood. It felt like…a nice day. An accomplished one, despite all the mountains of work that he still had to climb. The buzzing in his mind had…slowed, a little.

“It was good,” he said abruptly.

Maria turned, puzzled.

“What?”

“It was good for me, you stealing my wallet,” Ed clarified. Because, he realised, if Maria had left his wallet as is, he would’ve wandered into that coffee shop, paid, and left immediately. If he had had his wallet, he wouldn’t have hung around arguing back and forth with Fletcher about whether or not he would get Fletcher to front his coffee money instead. If he hadn’t left his wallet behind, then Roy would never have walked in with Ed still there, and offered to pay.

 _That_ had put him in a good mood. Kind of insignificant, when you thought about the big picture. But Ed was about the small picture, and the little things. And having some person who you’d met only once spend a couple of bucks on you without any expectation of ever getting it back…that counted for something, in Ed’s book. Made him feel all nice, and like he needed to go out and do some good too.

“He’s a nice guy,” Ed said absently. “Which is weird, ‘cause he was _such_ an ass last week.”

“Guy was stressed,” Maria noted. “Makes sense.”

“Yeah,” Ed said, staring out the window. “Makes sense.”

So many different bits to Roy, beneath it all. Politician. God-father. Alchemist. Then there was that killer smile, but the childish teasing, and then the little bit of distance when he talked about alchemy.

All these little pieces, and funnily enough, Ed wanted to make sense of all of it.

* * *

When Ed clocked in at nine the next morning, Maria was already at her desk, and waiting for him.

“You managed to wait until the sun came up before going to work,” she said. “Nice.”

“Someone got on my back about working too hard,” he said. Because he just wanted to be annoying—sometimes, you had to keep your partner in line—he peeled off a sheet from her pad of sticky notes, and plastered it on her forehead. “Welcome to the new, fun Edward Elric.”

“Elric,” Maria said, voice weighed down with gravitas, “you are not cute.”

“Ross,” Ed said, in the same tone of voice. “I’m fuckin’ adorable.”

Maria rolled her eyes as she removed the sticky note, and bounced it into the bin. “The absolute worst,” she confirmed. “By the way, Al got you your blood report.”

Good. Straight back to business.

“I love my little brother,” Ed announced. “Talk to me.”

“Turns out they were right, it was animal blood. Pig, to be precise.”

Ed took the report that she offered to him, frowning. “Pig, huh? Trace amounts of pig’s blood… _dead_ pig, apparently.”

“Glad no one slaughtered their pet pig while they were writing an evil serial killer letter.”

Ed grunted in agreement. “So whose just got a dead pig hanging around?”

“Kitchen,” Maria suggested. “Either home or commercial. Butcher. Farmers. Everyone in the pig meat supply chain, Ed.”

“Fuckin’ people,” Ed muttered, leafing through the final parts of the report. Possibly mixed with human sweat, but that didn’t tell him all that much other than there had been a person there, which, duh. “If they’re not fuckin’ up other people, they’re fuckin’ up my investigation by giving me too many suspects.”

“That, Elric, is the true crime,” Maria said dryly. “If only there were less people so that it’d be easier to identify suspects.”

“Shut up, Ross.”

“May I request permission to speak once more before I proceed to do that, _sir_?”

Ed rolled his eyes, and clicked his tongue. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Just wanted to know if you needed anything from me. I’m heading to court later, so I’ll be out in the afternoon. Got a few things to tidy up before then, but I’ve probably got an hour or so I can lend you if you want.”

Ed scrunched up his face, thinking, juggling. Witnesses—a very loose term for the two people who had heard some noises around some of the murders—were all interviewed. Crime scenes had all been swept, and evidence was being analysed, with nothing Ed able to do to speed up the process. The latest information was on the blood on the letter, but now he had that all he could do was think it over and work with it.

Honestly? Honestly, he didn’t have the pieces. He didn’t have jack shit, and it was pissing him off. He couldn’t just sit around and _wait_ for them to kill another person, just so he could get some more information to work off.

“Nah, I don’t think I’ve got much we can go on,” he said with a sigh. “Do what you gotta do. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

“Sure. What’s your plan?”

Ed hummed. “Might go check out the first scene again. Gonna rework it, I think, now with the piggy angle. Hopefully something clicks in my brain. I’ll let you know if I catch anything.”

Maria swivelled back around in her chair with a nod. “Happy hunting.”

“You too, kill ‘em in court.”

Maria grunted, and Ed headed back to his office. There was work to be done. He’d walk the scene again, bounce some ideas around in his head, so he could think things through, physically walk in his killer’s shoes.

With a sigh, he sank into his desk chair, rubbing at his eyes. The later morning had been good for him, but it was still annoying not to be holding a coffee cup. He did kind of want to listen to Maria. He knew that he’d been consuming dangerous levels of caffeine for a while now, and when even Fletcher had picked up on it, there was a problem. That kid relied on energy drinks to get him through exam season, so when _he_ was worried, it was definitely time for everyone to be worried.

Still, considering that Ed had been downing a good five or six a day for the past fortnight, there was a lot of room for interpreting what ‘cutting down’ meant.

“Ross,” he called, his chair creaking as he leaned back in it to stare at his patchy ceiling.

He heard a grunt from outside.

“How many coffees was I allowed to get a day?”

“Elric, if you get a drop more than one, I will take your wallet again, throw it in a body bag, and give it to Alphonse to melt using whatever acids he might have down in his lab.”

Ed swallowed. “Right. Gotcha.”

Still, he groaned as he slumped across his desk. If he was going to limit his coffee to one a day, it was either now, or later in the afternoon. Now was instant gratification, but that also meant having to sit through the long hours of the afternoon slog without anything to prop him up.

Hrm. If he went in the afternoon, maybe he’d run into Mustang.

Ed groaned again, for a different reason. _No_ , he didn’t have time for distractions, even if the distraction was super interesting and kind of weird, making him exactly the type of person that Ed was usually forcefully recruited to be friends with. He was cool, and Ed thought that they could get along. Plus it’d be useful to have someone in Parliament; there had been more than one occasion in his career in which Ed had needed someone with a little bit of pull. Or at least, someone’s name that scared civilians enough to speed things up.

And, well, he’d been—surprisingly—good company.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Ed had five dead on his hands, and if he didn’t do anything, he would have a sixth.

Ed shoved Roy (and his gentle smile and well-cut suit) out of his mind, to focus on the task at hand.

“Murder,” he muttered. “More important than Fancy Suit and his dumb smile.”

Satisfied that he had his priorities back in order, Ed got to work.

* * *

Five hours later, he was back at the scene of their first crime. Hands stuck in the pockets of his usual jacket, left hand sweating inside his glove, he scowled at the uneven cobblestones as if they had offended him.

Ed hadn’t been the first on scene, but he remembered it like those fucking nature documentaries he’d watched with all those years back. As in, really fucking well. He’d gotten the call in the early hours of the morning, that pre-dawn lull before the city began to move again. The city’s streetlights had just turned off as early summer sun had breached the horizon, and Ed’s phone had gone off like a fucking alarm, Maria Ross on the line.

_Caught a case, Elric. Dawson Way, just off Main Road._

Eleven minutes between the call and arriving at the scene, and Ed had witnessed the undignified way in which Martel Donalova had been displayed: sprawled in the middle of the street, dried blood having spilled down her front from the gash across her throat. Blond hair, a wicked tattoo, and an expression of lifeless surprise. Maria had been calming down the distraught jogger who had found the body.

Ed still hadn’t found Martel’s killer.

Ed sighed, kicking a rock, watching is clatter away in the street. He had obviously already walked this scene before. Martel had been the first, but she hadn’t been killed in the street. There hadn’t been any blood splatters, nor a trail. Just a dead body, and not much else to show for it. It had been too early in the morning for anyone to have seen the suspect, and Ed had gone long and far before he’d found Rose Thomas. She’d been watering her vegetable garden early in the morning to protect it against the sun, and had seen a large white van drive in that direction.

That was all Ed had. A large white van, which could be any fucking one in damn Central City.

Irritated all over, Ed looked up, glanced around the street. Pig’s blood. Pig’s blood…

A restaurant, up one end. A butcher, two doors down from that. And of course, all the houses within which anyone could be carving up some roast pork.

“Detective!”

Ed whirled.

Some lady was walking towards Ed, and Ed squinted before he realised that she was one of the people that he’d interviewed before. Pink dress, brown hair to her ears, owned the bakery next to the restaurant, and very, heavily pregnant.

What was her name…ah, Karin Cooper.

“Ms Cooper,” Ed said, smiling widely. “How are you?”

“Well, Detective. Very well.” She smiled as she neared, brushing her hair away from her eyes.

“And how’s the…” Ed waved vaguely at the region of her stomach, not sure what people said about these things, “…pregnancy?”

Cooper laughed. “Yeah, Barry and Debbie from Jim’s store are helping me out today, so I should be plenty rested and ready!”

Ed did not know who the fuck Barry and Debbie were. He assumed that they were employees of whoever this Jim guy was, and just smiled as though he understood anything about butchering things.

“Sounds good.”

“Should come any day now, the doctor said.”

Oh shit, was she about to pop it out now?

Cooper must have spotted the look of horror on Ed’s face, because she laughed again. “Not immediately, Detective, but soon.”

“Ah. I’m glad.”

“I assume you’re working on that murder, still?”

Ed shrugged. “Well, if it ain’t this one it’d just be another one. But yeah, still on it.”

“Saw you on the telly a couple of times,” Cooper said, winking, and Ed’s face started heating up. Didn’t his face know that wasn’t professional? “Real handsome, Detective.”

“It’s just the cameras, Ms Cooper. Makes anyone look good.”

She laughed again. “Well, I just wanted to say hi when I saw you, but I should get back to the shop. Good luck!”

“You too,” he said, smiling. “With the…baby.” He waved her off, watching as she waddled back up the street.

No wonder Martel had been murdered right here. Middle of the day, and barely anyone had walked by. Cooper, and an older couple that Ed had spotted about twenty minutes ago. It got busy around lunch, Ed knew, when people needed to find food. But other than that, people just stuck to the main roads.

But surely the murderer had used those same main roads? Did they have the note when they’d killed Martel? It was only addressed to a ‘Detective’. Could be anyone. Did they write it where they’d killed her, or another victim, or was it only an afterthought? Could go either way, really. The fact that they’d waited until Ed had collected several bodies could either be premeditation, or spontaneity.

Ed sighed. This was giving him a headache. He’d come down with Ross tomorrow; he didn’t feel as though he would be an effective interviewer at the moment; there were too many fucking _thoughts_ running around in his mind. His brain was jumping between theories and ideas and connections like a tiny, overactive squirrel, when he just needed it to rest and bury some acorns to grow into proper trees or some shit. He needed something to actually take root, instead of this stupid, half-assed scratching of the surface before his mind sped off somewhere else.

What he _needed_ was a distraction. Something to reset his brain. Coming in late this morning had done wonders for his sleep schedule, but his thoughts were still scattered and horribly disjointed, and he needed them to _settle_. Al was out; he had his own work. Maria was also occupied in court. Which left Ed with a total of two other people he hung out with: Fletcher, or his brother. Ed was _definitely_ not going to see Russell; although a good, healthy argument did occasionally stimulate his brain, his brain was over-stimulated at the moment.

Fletcher it was.

Though the kid would be busy, Ed realised, disappointed. He liked Fletch. He was good for a rant, but also just good for nothing. Not as in ‘good-for-nothing’, but good for letting Ed _think_ about nothing. Just being talking through how his uni work was, the latest weird flavours they’d decided to add to their mochas, the weird antics their brothers got up to. A solid kind of guy, but if Ed bugged him at work then chances were he’d be busy frothing milk and doing other weird barista shit to talk about weird non-barista shit.

Ed blinked. He glanced down at his watch.

He was twenty minutes away from Boss As Beans. It was about half an hour to the time that he’d run into Roy Mustang there yesterday. A distraction, he’d thought just before. And before, Ed had thought that he couldn’t afford one. But maybe it wasn’t all that bad? The little walk back to their respective offices had at least been a _welcome_ distraction.

He wondered briefly whether or not he should text Fletcher, just to see when exactly Roy tended to check in. But was that weird? In the end, if he had already ducked in, then Ed could just chill with Fletch as he did the milk frothing, which had been what he’d originally thought to do anyway. But if he _hadn’t_ , or didn’t come in on Thursdays or some weird shit, then…well Ed would lose nothing, except for be a little disappointed.

But what if he was already there, and Ed didn’t know, and he just kept walking at a snail’s pace to end up missing him? If he was already there, then Ed needed to know the appropriate walking speed to catch the guy.

Ed huffed out a breath. What the hell. He was thinking about this _way_ too much already, might as well unload it onto someone else.

 

**To: Fletcher T [3:47pm]**

Yo. What time does Mustang usually come in?

 

**From: Fletcher T [3:47pm]**

Did you make a friend????

 

Ed rolled his eyes, cursing when he almost ran into a dumpster.

 

**To: Fletcher T [3:49pm]**

No just need someone to talk to right now. Al and Maria are both out, and I dont want to bother you too much at work. He was nice enough

 

**From: Fletcher T [3:50pm]**

Ed, that is *literally* a friend. You enjoy his company and want to converse more.

 

**To: Fletcher T [3:50pm]**

TIME Tringham I need to know how fast to walk

 

**From: Fletcher T [3:54pm]**

Honestly not sure. He’s kinda new but when I have seen him it’s about the time you came in yesterday? But that’s only been two days. He might not even be a Thursday coffee guy. Sorry Ed :/

 

Ed groaned. Well, it was worth a shot.

 

**To: Fletcher T [3:55pm]**

Cool. See you in twenty. Walking pace has been set to slow amble.

 

**From: Fletcher T: [4:00pm]**

Youre weird

 

Ed didn’t really disagree. But, the slow amble was a winner in his opinion, so he stuck with his guns.

Now he had to figure out what to _say_. It had been easy yesterday, once they got onto topics in common, and once Ed finally relaxed and realised that the guy wasn’t a total asshole. Roy nodded in the right places, laughed at Ed’s weird comments, and made good eye contact.

But what if that _wasn’t_ what happened today? If their conversation went back to being weird and awkward, then not only would Ed not get the distraction that he wanted, he would also be fucking _pissed_ ‘cause he didn’t size the man up right. Though, if Roy ended up being more like what he was when Ed first met him, did that mean that Ed _had_ sized him up right? Or did the fact that he had changed his opinion turn that into an invalid hypothesis?

Ed scowled. Now _this_ was giving him a headache.

Wait. He should probably give the man a coffee back—that was a source of conversation. Kind of. And it made sense. Good plan Elric. Mental high five.

The traffic was getting busier as Ed walked away from the retail stores and back to the business district, where most people hung out during, well, business hours. The bright script of Boss As Beans drew into sight, stunning red against a blue background, fenced in by a white box. They weren’t too busy, Ed noted, the tables with the red umbrellas outside only half full.

And right on time.

 _Score one for the slow fucking amble_.

Ed recognised the posture, the easy lope of Roy’s gait. He _didn’t_ recognise the glasses that the man had perched on his nose, but the face behind it was kind of unforgettable, so he wasn’t hard to miss. Roy came swinging around the corner, eyes wandering from the glass display of one shop to the brightly lit sign of the next, before he ducked into Boss As Beans.

 _Perfect_. Ed thought congratulations were appropriate; slow amble had been fucking _right_.

Ed started to move towards the café—but then he realised it would probably be kind of creepy and/or weird if he just so happened to appear as soon as Mustang-call-me-Roy stepped inside. Maybe holding off a little would be better.

But if he held off too long, he might miss him. Which meant that he would have to come back the next day, and do all this shit _all over again_. Might as well get it over and done with. Though it did usually take Fletcher longer than thirty seconds to make a coffee, so Ed _did_ have time to dawdle and make things less weird.

He’d tie up his hair. That would buy him the time that he needed to not seem like a creep, plus it made it more casual. Hair up was work mode, and strolling down to the café to grab a drink when you were working was a heap less weird than doing it just because. All business. In and out, repay a favour, and then back to work.

* * *

Half an hour later, and Ed was sitting in a comfy booth, laughing his ass off at something ridiculous that Roy had just said.

“You did _what_?”

Across from him, Roy looked both annoyed and amused at the same time, and his ears were suspiciously red. “I was twenty-five and stupid, all right? Two months into the job, and you get past the initial stage of not knowing what’s going on, and end up thinking you know _everything_.”

“But you were explaining how Parliament works to a _senator_ —”

“I didn’t recognise her!” Roy said, and crossed his arms. “There are a lot of people in Parliament, Ed.”

Ed just shook his head, breathless with laughter because this _ass_ had insulted a political bigwig and not known it.

“And I thought you were smooth,” he choked out eventually, gulping down water while still grinning. “Like, seriously Roy, the whole suit and tie ensemble really had me thinking you were smooth.”

“I _am_ , just not two months into the job,” Roy said reproachfully.

“You’re somethin’ else,” Ed said, grinning. Then he sighed, tipping the last dregs of his coffee down his throat as Roy sipped on his weird shake thing again. He was…content. It was a nice feeling.

Roy was a nice guy.

He’d been reluctant to accept Ed’s coffee/shake gift at first, but when Ed had all but batted his wallet out of his hand, Roy had laughed, picking it up off the floor.

“Guess you’re quite adamant when you put your mind to it,” he’d said, and Ed had rolled his eyes at the stupid long words again. But he’d smiled. And he’d kept smiling after that, was smiling like an idiot _still_.

A nice feeling.

“Thanks,” Ed blurted, before his brain could decide that it was too embarrassing to admit to liking someone.

Roy raised an eyebrow. “Whatever for? You’re the one who gifted me the beverage.”

Ed rolled his eyes (he found he was doing a lot of _that_ too around Roy). “For hanging out. I needed to get away from work for a while, and you helped.”

Now the eyebrow lowered, and something in Roy’s face softened. “That’s unfortunate, but I’m glad to have helped. Your company has been a welcome addition to my day as well.”

Ed sighed. “Well, you’re fuckin’ welcome.” Shit. The swearing. The fucking _swearing_ , Elric, every damn time—

But Roy only laughed. Oh. That was a nice sound.

Ed cleared his throat. “We should probably get goin’, though. Your fault really. You cleared my brain out and now I feel like doin’ stuff.”

“A true crime,” Roy said.

“No it isn’t,” Ed said. “I’m a cop. You’re wrong.”

Roy chuckled. “I concede.” Then he paused, looking at Ed for a moment. His face had also gone kind of blank and still, as though Ed was some complicated book that he was trying to compute.

“Um, given that you wanted a distraction today, perhaps—does it happen often? Needing a conversation?”

Ed shrugged, not sure where this was going. “Sometimes. My brain works weird.”

Roy nodded, then seemed to come to a decision. “Well, if—I can give you my number, if you ever needed another distraction.” Roy smiled, a little hesitantly.

Ed blinked.

“Of course, if you don’t want to share your number with someone you’ve only met a few times, that’s completely understandable.” Roy laughed lightly, and drew away from where he’d been leaning across the table, which Ed had _just_ noticed. Asshole. Laughing like that; as if Roy had ever been denied the offer of a phone number in his life. Not looking like _that_.

“I’ve got your number,” Ed said flatly.

Now it was Roy’s turn to blink. “Pardon?”

“You’re in my files,” Ed explained. “So I’ve already got your number. No need to share.”

Roy cleared his throat. “Ah. Right. Of course.”

“But…” Ed stirred the dregs of foam around in his cup, staring at the circular motions, before lifting his eyes to meet Roy’s. “How about I give you mine, too? Equivalent exchange.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “Of phone numbers?”

“Of phone numbers.”

And man, the way he smiled just warmed Ed’s heart. “I’d love to.” He drew his phone out of his inside pocket, unlocking it before handing it over.

“Cute,” Ed muttered of the black and white dog that was Roy’s background, before bringing up his contact and punching in EDWARD ELRIC alongside several fire emojis. “There. Done.”

Roy scrunched up his nose when Ed handed his phone back. “Was the fire necessary?”

“Just so you can tell me apart from all the other Ed Elrics, all caps.”

At that, Roy chuckled, before tucking his phone back into the same pocket. “Right. Obviously.” Then he stood, stretching, and Ed resisted the urge to poke at his stomach. “Shall we walk back together again?”

Ed grinned, jumping to his own feet. “Fuck yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rebloggable [here](http://psyraah.tumblr.com/post/156886920512/i-am-slow-im-sorry). Bless you beans for your nice comments too I love you all. They feed my motivation ❤️❤️


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